Selling Soap and Educating the Public about Germs

-- precursor of the "soap opera" and a fine example of the hard sell, circa 1880

Editor’s Note: As a collector of historical textbooks, this 4" x 5" proprietary book by Lever Brothers fell into my hands and I found it fascinating enough to scan it for re-publication on the Web. It has the name of Miss Clara Walker, London Rd, and the date 1880 penciled in margin of the book. There is no other publishing information.

The purpose of this fictional short story is to "sell soap" and incidentally, to educate the public about the newly discovered "germ theory" and introduce the idea of invisible "germs" which it likens to little "seeds". The purpose was to make the idea of a "disinfectant" soap desirable. The author employed an amazing spectrum of dramatic elements for so short a story -- class conflict, classical chauvinism, romance, the acquisition of fame and wealth, the principle of asepsis, and of course, a fascination with the newest trends. It uses words such as "magic" to describe the scientific advances of the era.

This story revolves around a winsome but lower class young woman -- Jessie Harewood -- who was living in Manchester, UK in a rooming house with her father. He dies suddenly leaving her penniless and without resources and so she soon finds herself employed as a companion and practical nurse for a wealthy but very unhappy and unpleasant elderly spinster -- Miss Prinkle, also an occupant in the rooming house.

After a brief employment she is fired -- the result of a malicious interference by Miss Prinkle’s jealous maid. Kicked out on the street she is befriended by the tall and handsome Gerald Ashley -- an upper class gentlemen recently suffered the loss his family’s wealth and who incidentally has sister gravely ill with typhoid fever. The story revolves around a lost suitcase which gets switched and somehow ("magically" according to the author) turns out to have 12 bars of Lifebuoy disinfectant soap which "saves the day".

The country doctor, Dr. Fairleigh, also play a prominent part in the story. By the time the story ends, the local village has been saved from all manner of disease, the minister's appitite is improved now that he doesn't have to visit "pigstyes" and the sick, the doctor is wealthy and famous and the couple has married (a double wedding with the sister who recovers from the typhoid fever). The Ashley have 3 beautiful children and Gerald becomes wealthy selling the marvelous "Lifebuoy" disinfectant soap.

For brevity, I excerpted portions of the story to give a flavor of the overall "soap opera" quality of the drama and the pseudo-science -- an excuse for selling soap, 1880 style. After finishing you will be struck by how much things HAVEN'T changed in 117 years!

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Excerpts) skip to chapter one

3. GUIDE TO HOME NURSING-continued.

How to prevent and treat Bedsores.

How to give Medicine. To apply Liniments, Ointments,

and Leeches. To use and keep Ice, etc.

How to change Sheets and Night-gown without moving a Patient from Bed.

How to make a costless Bedrest.

4. GUIDE TO THE NURSING OF INFECTIOUS ILLNESSES.

Preparation of the Room -- for an Infectious case.

Special uses of LIFEBUOY SOAP.

Symptoms of, and Special dangers in Small Pox, Scarlet Fever, Scarlatina, Measles, Whooping Cough, Typhoid and Typhus Fevers, and Ophthalmia

Care of patients during illness and convalescence.

OUR DUTY TO OUR NEIGHBOUR

Infection, and how to keep it from spreading.

6. CHOLERA: HOW TO PREVENT IT.

The Symptoms of Cholera, and how to treat them before the Doctor comes.

SPECIAL CHAPTER FOR WOMEN:

On Puerperal Fever - What it is-and how it may be prevented.

A WORD OF WARNING:

To District Nurses and District Visitors.

9. SICK DIET, AND FEEDING THE SICK.

How to make Beef Tea, Whey, Gruel, and other requisites for the Sick room.

Chapter 1

TRAGEDY

Chapter One introduces Miss Harewood, who is described as "a fair, brown-eyed girl, with a slender figure and a gentle face". This one page intro is a melodramatic rendition, in amazingly few words, of the doctor’s "verdict" of her father’s terminal ill, followed by the weeping and wailing of Miss Harewood at the bedside as her father falls into a swoon and promptly dies.

page 8 Miss Harewood at bedside of dying father

CHAPTER 2.

COMEDY

From the sublime to the ridiculous is, proverbially, but a step. Sometimes only a few deal boards and a whitewashed ceiling separate the tragic from the comic side of life.

The room directly under that occupied by Mr. Harewood was the bedroom of Miss Pringle, a maiden lady of means, the principal lodger in Mrs. Matterson's house. She occupied what were known as "the drawing-room apartments," and she traveled about with a maid of her own. She had plenty of money, and nothing on earth to do. People who have very little cash, and more work than they know how to get through, may envy her, but if they knew how wearisome her life was, from having nothing but herself to think of from morn to night, they would not perhaps be so ready to change places with her.

page 9

In sheer distress for occupation, she had taken to believe that she was a great invalid. Physicing (use of laxatives) and dieting served her for an interest in life, and the attendance of the doctor or his assistant gave a certain fillip to her monotonous days, while the study of a work on "Diet and Digestion," was the cheerful occupation of her evenings.

Just as Mr. Harewood was dying overhead, Miss Pringle was engaged in an alteration with her maid. "It is really extremely tiresome of you Yorkins," she said, "to write such an illiterate hand, and to spell so outrageously badly!" There was some justification for the rebuke. A note had just come back from the chemist's to say he did not keep the article Miss Pringle required. The-order for this had been written by Yorkins, who hated going out in the rain, so she had sent Mrs. Matterson’s little girl with an order requesting "tenn granes of Han Tie Pie Rynn."

(discontinuity)

Page 16 -- The Missing Bag

.............appearing at the little gate she saw, not an old gardener as she expected, but a young man in a gray tweed suit, holding in his hand a little bunch of autumn leaves and flowers.

He was much taller than Jessie, and quite looked down on her as he leaned over the shabby wooden gate, and his dark blue eyes that had been full of gloom lighted up and seemed to grow as bright as sapphires, has he said, with a comical smile:

"A babe in the wood, eh! And have you a very important letter to post young lady?"

"I have a telegram to send about a bag I have lost!" said Jessie, her lips quivering.

"A dressing-bag I suppose; or have you lost your band-box, you careless little thing? You are afraid you won't have your new hat to shew in church on Sunday," said the young man, in a bantering tone, but to his consternation Jessie burst into tears, and covering, her face with her hands sobbed as if her heart would break.

"Oh come! This is too bad! What a brute I am ! Stop crying, there's a good child. For mercy's sake stop!"

And in a twinkling the young man had opened the gate, taken Jessie's hands in his own, and was looking into her tear-stained face with an expression of pity.

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"I didn't mean to make you cry. I didn't mean to laugh at you. I am awfully sorry, upon my honour!"and as his quick bright eyes took in the genuine grief in her wan, soft, young face, his own turned pale and sad, as if he too was no stranger to sorrow.

CHAPTER 8.

TREACHERY.

Two other things happened this same morning.

Miss Pringle found she had caught a little cold on the journey, and Yorkins was seized with a violent spasm, not of cramp-but of jealousy. Her mistress had desired to be attended on in bed by Jessie, instead of herself. Jessie had returned from her early trip to the post office, bringing with her a pair of rosy checks and sparkling eyes, and gave Yorkins an account of the kind stranger who had taken her to the post office, sent the telegram, and promised to do all he could to trace the lost bag.

"And, oh! Mrs. Yorkins," said Jessie, her eyes filling, "I am so sorry for him, he has a sister who is very ill, they are lodging in that cottage-and it is so uncomfortable-and be is so unhappy about her-the doctor thinks it may be a fever she is getting-isn't it dreadful!"

Jessie was standing at the table holding the tray she had brought from Miss Pringle's room -- she was to go back and read aloud, but in the fullness of her heart she delayed a minute to pour out her tale.

Yorkins listened with a mixture of contempt and anger on her face; the contempt was for Jessie, the anger for her inconstant mistress. Just as Jessie said the last words a sharp tinkle was heard from upstairs, Miss Pringle's bell; she darted off, and a sudden flash crossed Yorkins' face; it expressed quite a number of things -- the prominent one, victory!

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The next day, at the very same hour as the morning before, Jessie was hurrying towards the cottage in the lane; in her hand she held a bottle given to her by the kind good Yorkins, whom she now looked on as a sort of human angel, so much had she sympathized all the evening before with the young man and his sick sister. Whenever she could get out of Miss Pringle's hearing, Yorkins had almost wept over the sad story.

"Don't mention it to poor Miss P. at present, my dear," she said. She's so nervous it would keep her awake, but do you go and see the poor, dear, young lady in the morning, you won't be wanted before nine, and take her this bottle, its known to cure fevers," and Yorkins looked very sad, "and see her yourself; we ought all to help the sick you know;" and she turned up her eyes piously, and handed Jessie an old medicine bottle she had filled with sugar and water.

Jessie was delighted-she longed to help the first person who had spoken a kind word to her since -her father's death, and as she lay awake on her pallet, she did not feel its hardness as she thought of the soft pressure her hand had received when this person had said good-bye-and she longed for the morning.

"I don't care,-well or ill you must pack, I've no time to look after sick people here!" said their landlady Mrs. Perks. These were the words, loud and harsh, that fell on Jessie's ear as she approached the cottage. They were answered by a deeper tone --one she knew as Mr. Ashley.

"Oh! do not ask me to take her away, for the love of heaven -- don't; I'll try again if I can't find some one to nurse her." He stopped short -- it was the young man in the gray suit. He bad been looking imploringly at the hard-faced slatternly woman who stood in the path, but at this moment he had caught sight of Jessie.

"She is very ill today -- very ill" he exclaimed, coming towards her, " it may kill her to be moved, but Mrs. Perks says we must go! "

"Yes, I've a houseful of children, and no time for sick nursing, let alone having fever in the house; you must pack, Mr. Ashley, and quick too; there's no nurses to be had in this village, so you'd better go elsewhere!"

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"I don't care,-well or ill you must pack, I've no time to look after sick people here!" said their landlady Mrs. Perks. These were the words, loud and harsh, that fell on Jessie's ear as she approached the cottage. They were answered by a deeper tone --one she knew as Mr. Ashley.

"Oh! do not ask me to take her away, for the love of heaven -- don't -- I'll try again if I can't find some one to nurse her." He stopped short -- it was the young man in the gray suit. He bad been looking imploringly at the hard-faced slatternly woman who stood in the path, but at this moment he had caught sight of Jessie.

"She is very ill today -- very ill" he exclaimed, coming towards her, " it may kill her to be moved, but Mrs. Perks says we must go! "

"Yes, I've a houseful of children, and no time for sick nursing, let alone having fever in the house; you must pack, Mr. Ashley, and quick too; there's no nurses to be had in this village, so you'd better go elsewhere!"

"Oh! Cried Jessie clasping her hands, " if I could nurse her, I wonder would Miss Pringle let me!"

"But, can you nurse?" said the young man, joy shining in his troubled face.

Ah, yes, indeed I can!" and Jessie thought, with a pang, of her father.

"You are an angel" cried Mr. Ashley enthusiastically and pretty enough for one, too," he thought to himself, in his relief and gratitude.

"I'll fly back and ask for leave," cried Jesse, her fleet steps carrying her out of sight almost before they could answer.

* * * * *

"You little viper, you wretched little viper, get away from that gate this instant-don't attempt to come up the garden path, I'll send for the police if you do I" shouted Miss Prinkle.

page 20

This torrent of words, screamed by Miss Pringle from her open bedroom window out of which she was leaning, met Jessie's ear as she tried to open the latch of the gate ---Miss Pringle was in her bonnet, and her face was purple with passion. Jessie's heart stood still, she shook with terror. "Could Miss Pringle have gone mad?" Oh I what is the matter? " she cried faintly.

"Matter! " shouted Miss Pringle, " you little fox, after all I've done for you, to try and kill me; you ought to be hanged, you little d---1, to sneak off to a house full of fever, to carry on with a strange man. To think that I nearly was going to put you in my poor, clever, Yorkins' place, only she tracked you out; and that you would not heed, even when she begged and prayed of you not to go to a house full of infection, and risk the life of your benefactress, you hideous little hussy I

All Jessie's blood seemed to rush to her brain ---What did it mean; what had she done? But at that moment a cab drove up with Yorkins inside-and then Jessie saw it all. The malignant look of victory on the woman's face told the whole tale. She had ousted her rival with a vengeance!

Continue on to Part two