Let’s Drink to Health: Objects Associated with “Healthful” Drinks

Now, good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both!

-Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 3 scene 4

A good drink deserves a good toast, often to the health and happiness of those partaking in the drink. Sometimes, the good drink was considered to be the element that provided for the health of the drinker. Today, “healthy” drinks can be medicinal like a cough syrup or they provide vitamins and minerals to a drinker, like an orange juice. Similarly, in early America, there were drinks that were believed to support the health and wellbeing of individuals. These drinks ranged from alcoholic beverages to liquid food and could be prepared and administered at home.

Home administration of health care was key to the population of early America. During the early colonial period, there was a limited number of physicians in America; instead, apothecaries, midwives, and clergymen provided health advice and some services to the community, but family members would often be the ones who directly cared for sick individuals. By the end of the colonial period and into the Early Republic, medicine in America was becoming more systematic, regulated, and accessible. Nevertheless, home cures and health care in the home overseen by family members remained the typical care that most invalids received.

Throughout early America, materials associated with health care were made, imported, and used. Though the actual medicines and medical drinks prove to be ephemeral, their recipes and the vessels used to house and serve these liquids have survived into the present day. The objects presented below are examples of form types that were used for drinks that were originally medicinal but later morphed into more social or recreational drinks.

 

Caudle cup, 1954.0536, England 1660-1685, Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont. This tin-glazed, buff-colored earthenware caudle cup is a squat inverted ovoid shape with a single ear-shaped strap handle. The opaque white glaze fully covers the interior and exterior of the small mug, creating an impervious liquid barrier over the porous earthenware body. This glaze allowed the vessel to hold the medicinal caudle and prevented the liquid from seeping into the body while also allowing for easier cleaning of the vessel. Image courtesy of Winterthur Museum.

Caudle cups were made in the third quarter of the 17^th century in England. These cups were originally made in silver and often had covers, but ceramic forms were commonly made as well. These cups were used to serve caudle, a warm drink consisting of a thin gruel mixed with wine or ale that was sweetened and spiced. From the late medieval period through the 18^th century, caudle was chiefly administered to invalids or to women following childbirth, but it was also served to their visitors.[i]

One interesting caudle cup in the Winterthur collection lives in the 17^th century rooms on the fourth floor of the house. The delft cup includes a hand-painted half-length portrait of Charles II. The English imagery on the vessel serves as a reminder that American colonists were closely linked to England and continued to employ the traditions and health practices of the land from which they immigrated.

Glass (nonlead), 2006.0003.049, possibly England 1755-1780, Gift of Dr. Thomas M. McMillan III. This glass form only holds an ounce or two of liquid. The dainty, blown cup with gently swirling basal flutes is raised on a long and relatively thick air twist stem that rests on a plain conical foot. The stem is composed of a central lace twist that is surrounded by a pair of spiral threads, which creates further dimensions of depth in the translucent, clear non-leaded glass. The wide diameter of the foot contrasts greatly with the small diameter of the bowl. This small capacity of the cup is further exasperated by the domed protrusion that rises from the base of the bowl. Image courtesy of Winterthur Museum.

Cordials, aromatic and sweetened spirits, were another early “health” drink popular in America and England. Throughout the 18^th century, alcohol was believed to be beneficial to one’s health and was often prescribed to treat ills like fevers or colds and injuries such as snakebites and broken bones.[ii] Brandies or other distilled liquors were flavored with an assortment of fruits, berries, and herbs to create cordials, which were considered to be restorative or aphrodisiac drinks.[iii] Cordials were only consumed in small quantities since they were expensive and had high alcohol content. As medicinal drinks, they were thought to invigorate the heart, stimulate circulation, and revive or comfort the drinker. Cordials were self-administered and served in the home in small wineglasses, like one in the Winterthur collection.

Elizabeth Coultas’s recipe book from 1749/50 is one of several manuscripts written by women to compile their recipes in the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera at the Winterthur Library. Many recipes for medicinal drinks and treatments were recorded in manuscripts like these.

Not only were cordials self-prescribed, they could be purchased, prepared, or concocted in the home. The recipe book of Elizabeth Coultas from 1749/50 includes a “Receipt for a Consumption Cold and Cough” with instructions to “take a pound of orange peel well clear’d of ye white, a pound of gentian root infuse them into a Gallon of Brandy for several days in a warm place Shaking it up often then Colour it with cochneal.”[iv] The common inclusion of cordial recipes in the recipe books that housewives maintained indicates both how they were commonly used in the 18^th century as medicine and how common it was for medicine to be concocted in the home.

These objects from the Winterthur collection associated with healthful drinks in early America provide insight to the changing conceptualizations of medicine and health care in early America, and the value of ceramic and glass objects in home health care.

By Sara McNamara, WPAMC Class of 2018

 

References:

[i] Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933) 192.

[ii] Robert I. Goler, The Healing Arts in Early America (New York: Francis Tavern Museum, 1985) 37.

[iii] Dwight P. Lanmon, The Golden Age of English Glass, 1650-1775 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2011) 56.

[iv] Elizabeth Coultas, Recipe Book 1749/50, manuscript in the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera at the Winterthur Library.