Haemorrhoid-busting medic William Henry went nationwide with his breakthrough cure 112 years ago.
His confidence was based on the fact no patient returned for a second treatment. An application of glycerine and arsenic would do the trick, according to accounts of his methods contained in the DC Thomson archive.
One of his first patients was an aristocratic woman whose cure was so swift he never saw her again.
Dr Henry dispensed marital as well as medical advice in his column.
He warned young men never to contradict their wives with the following advice: “You are right nine out of 10 times and she knows it but to tell her makes her unmanageable.”
The doctor also believed there was a link between hair and health. His studies revealed curly hair sufferers could tell when it was going to rain because their hair became curlier. The cure was to dampen the hair with strong tea overnight.
Men liable to throat colds should cultivate beards. Nothing affords better protection from draughts and bleak winds and women are partial to beards, the doctor revealed.
“The only throat cold I myself ever had was distinctly traceable to my having cut and thinned my hirsute appendage,” wrote Dr Henry.
Constipation taxed his medical skills but he settled on friction as a cure. He advised patients to rub stomach and groin with their hands before rising in the morning. Female sufferers should take much-needed exercise to counteract their sedentary lifestyles.
Inflamed eyes should be treated with one teaspoonful of boric acid, 15 drops of spirit of camphor and half a pint of boiling water.
While hiccoughs could be cured with vinegar-laced sugar lumps, he warned against the widespread practice of girthy women taking vinegar to “keep down their fat”.
As far back as 1903, Dr Henry even had the cure for the common cold. His advice was to take to bed under a pile of blankets, drink three or four tumblers of water and two Spanish onions.
His cure came with the warning that it may act suddenly upon the bowel.