Advertising used to be a lot more refined—even as it was selling snake oil—as can be seen from this final dip into the January 1898 issue of The Nickell.

Captured in an elegant drawing reminiscent of Charles Dana Gibson, two upper-class diners ever-so-delicately discuss the lady’s indigestion, which it seems can only be solved by swallowing a Ripans Tabule and waiting 10 minutes.

But what’s Ripans? And what the heck is a Tabule?

According to The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation, Ripans was a invented by adman George Presbury Rowell, “who pioneered many of the rules of advertising agency practice, [and] sought to put all of his special know-how to work in the creation of a patent medicine.”

Here’s how he came up with the name, and why he decided his tablets should be called “tabules.”

Rowell canvassed a variety of possibilities in search of a name for his product, and finally decided to create one from the initial letters of the names of the ingredients. Since these were rhubarb, ipecac, peppermint, aloes, nux vomica, and soda, the result was RIPANS. Instead of terming his pellets tablets, Rowell coined an arbitrary word that was similar but distinctive. The advertising agent set about promoting Ripans Tabules. He had ample advertising space he had contracted for but had not been able to unload, mostly in poorer newspapers. Into this space he crowded messages remarking the merit of the first patent medicine put up in tablet form, the first patent medicine to be sold for a nickel. Rowell’s copy emphasized how Ripans Tabules would benefit dyspepsia and illnesses from a disordered stomach. He had determined, so he said, to avoid objectionable or suggestive phrases in his advertising. But he was not above exaggeration. “Wanted,” read one ad, “a case of bad health that R-I-P-A-N-S will not benefit …. No matter what’s the matter, one will do you good. They banish pain, induce sleep, prolong life.”

Did it work? I can’t find any evidence whether it did or didn’t. Another name for nux vomica, however, is … the strychnine tree. And I doubt that ipecac would aid in settling my stomach, when its intended effect is the opposite.

I’ll stick with my Pepto-Bismol, thank you very much. And in fact, I could have back then, if I’d just been able to wait another three years, as it was invented in 1901.