Dr. Miles Restorative Nervine, later called simply Miles Nervine, was a patent medicine that was on the market from the mid-1880’s up through the late 1970’s. Originally sold in liquid form, beginning around 1930 it was available in effervescent tablet form as well.
Like many patent medicines, early on it was touted as a “cure” for just about anything nerve related, as evidenced by the wording in this 1886 advertisement.
Nervous Prostration, Sleeplessness, Sick and Nervous Headache. Backache, Dizziness, Morbid Fears, Hot Flashes, Nervous Dyspepsia, Dullness, Confusion. Hysteria, Fits, St Vitus’ Dance, Opium Habit, Drunkenness, etc., are cured by DR. MILES RESTORATIVE NERVINE.
By the turn of the century Nervine’s sales pitch focused more on the product’s sedative qualities, suggesting that it was the “restful sleep and sweet repose” it provided that addressed those nervous issues.
Neuralgia, headache, rush of blood to the head, numbness, an irritable temper, loss of appetite, sleepless nights, poor memory and a general run-down condition. There is no remedy so sure and safe as Dr. Miles’ Nervine. From the very first dose its soothing and quieting influence can be felt. Nothing in the past has ever equalled it in power of building up weakened nerve tissues and giving strength to the entire body. The weary sufferer who has walked the floor at night with throbbing temples and bursting brain, will find restful sleep and sweet repose, and awake feeling strong and refreshed. Dr. Miles’ Nervine searches out the weak parts wherever they may be hid and gives them new life and vigor.
Fifty years later, Nervine advertising sent pretty much the same message.
At one time or another most of us became upset and jittery due to overwrought nerves. This makes us irritable, restless and wakeful. You can’t do your work well the next day, if you toss and tumble through the night and don’t get the rest you need. At such times why not do as many thousands have done for over 60 years – try MILES NERVINE
Miles Nervine is a mild but effective sedative that helps soothe overwrought nerves and permits refreshing sleep. It has brought restful days and peaceful nights to thousands…
Those “restful days and peaceful nights” were brought about by bromide salts, an ingredient in Nervine that was outlawed by the FDA in the mid to late 1970’s. This brought about the end of the product when its maker at the time, Miles Laboratories, chose not to alter the formula.
So with that as background, what follows is the Dr. Miles Restorative Nervine story.
It’s namesake and inventor was Dr. Franklin Miles who was born outside of Cleveland, in Olmstead Falls, Ohio, sometime in the late 1840’s (1846, 1880 census; 1848, 1900 census and 1847, 1910 census).
According to “A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Elkhart, Indiana,” by Anthony Deal, published in 1905, after earning a law degree from New York’s Columbia College he opted to change professions and studied medicine at Chicago’s Rush Medical College, Chicago Medical College and the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Afterwards, he remained in Chicago for a year where, in 1874, he was listed as a physician with an address of 57 Blue Island Avenue. He’s not listed in Chicago the following year suggesting he moved to Elkhart where, in 1880, census records continued to list his occupation as “physician.”
Five years later, still in Elkhart, he established the Dr. Miles Medical Company to manufacture and sell several patent medicines under his name. The new company’s incorporation notice appeared in the November 7, 1885 edition of the “Indianapolis Journal.”
His initial menu of patent medicines included his “Restorative Nervine” along with”Dr. Miles’ Nerve and Liver Pills” and Dr. Miles’ Heart Cure.” All three are mentioned in this advertisement found in a September, 1886 document entitled: “Minutes of the Southern Illinois Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church” that was held in Vandalia, Illinois.
The following year, in the Fall of 1887, advertisements touting his Nervine, began appearing in several Indiana, Michigan and Ohio newspapers. One of the earliest appeared in the November 16, 1887 edition of the “Angola (Indiana) Herald.”
Ten years later newspaper advertisements for Nervine had spread from this small band of midwest states to every state and territory in the country, even appearing in several editions of Honolulu’s “The Hawaiian Star.”
Some, like the one below found on page 3 of the May 7, 1898 edition of the “St. Louis Post Dispatch,” encompassed an entire page complete with a headline, several promotional stories that appeared as genuine news, and testimonials of satisfied users.
Their advertising was not just focused on Nervine but promoted their other patent medicines as well. A three column long story promoting Dr. Miles’ New Heart Cure, appeared on the front page of the “Flint (Michigan) Journal” on November 8, 1898. The headline read:
According to the “Findings of Fact” in a 1906 court case, Dr. Miles Medical Co. vs. The May Drug Co., up through 1901 the Miles’ company had spent a total of $2,000,000 advertising its business.
The manufacturing plant required to meet the demand this advertising created was located at 109 – 115 West Franklin Street in Elkhart. A tour of the facility in June, 1900 made by members of the Indiana Pharmaceutical Association revealed that not only were the Miles medicines manufactured, packaged and shipped from there, but their printed material and newspaper advertising originated from there as well. A summary of the tour appeared in the June 25, 1900 edition of the “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” most of which is reproduced below. So come along and enjoy the tour! (How often do you get the opportunity to tour an early twentieth century patent medicine factory?)
The main feature of the visit, was of course, the laboratory, where the Dr. Miles remedies are prepared, which is one of the most complete in the United States. It occupies nearly one-half block and has light on every side. It is built of beautiful pressed brick with ornamental front, and has large windows and art glass transoms on the first floor.
The members of the association entered the main entrance in the northeast corner and passed over the mosaic floor in the vestibule, up six stairs into the main office, covering 6000 feet of floor space, in which are located twenty-six clerks, with desks, typewriters, map cabinets, card indexes, and all the necessary paraphernalia for conducting a large business, and keeping track of a large corps of traveling salesmen. In connection with this office are large fire proof vaults and a private office.
Shipping Room
Passing out of the office into the shipping room the guests observed large piles of medicine ready for shipment to all parts of the world. The shipping room contains nearly 4,000 square feet of floor space, and is divided into two parts, one of which is entirely fire proof. Here is kept the main portion of manufactured stock ready for shipment to various warehouses, jobbers and retailers throughout the country. Here is found a time clock of the latest pattern for keeping account of the 150 employees. The large shipping doors, which are on a level with the bed of the trucks, attracted special attention. From this shipping room there is an average of one carload of goods in and out each working day throughout the year.
Press Room
The press room has a cement floor, on which the presses get the most solid kind of foundation. Here are four large Miehle two-revolution cylinder presses, which have an average speed of about 120,000 finished eight-page papers every day of ten hours, 720,000 per week, or 37,440,000 copies per year. These are cut, folded, pasted and stitched on the six folding machines, two cutting machines and two wire stitchers.
Engine Room
Passing down into the engine room, which is really on the first floor, or occupies a half basement and is located in the court between the two wings of the building, the party entered a room containing two 75 horse-power boilers, large Corliss engine, 125 horse-power capacity; dynamo for lighting and transmission of power; deep well pump, which supplies pure water for the entire plant, and also for the large tank in the tower on the top of the building. Adjoining this is a complete machine shop, carpenter shop, saws for making boxes, bottle washing apparatus, knife grinding machines’ etc. Passing out of the engine room into the main portion of the building and bottle storage rooms , which have a capacity for 25 carloads of bottles, the party noted the large coal bins, where the company can store eight carloads of coal at one time.
Compounding Department
Taking the elevator up to the fourth floor, the visitors reached the compounding department… The tablet making machinery here is taxed to its utmost at present and is to be enlarged. It now has a capacity of 200,000 dozen Pain pills per annum. The compounding room proper on the left is of the very latest pattern; all of the machinery is of the newest and best possible type that money can buy. The medicine is made in large steam jacket kettles and dropped into the tanks on the floor below, where it is stored and filled.
A number of the visitors now went up the middle stairway and out on the roof, and a few of the more athletic climbed the thirty-five foot ladder to the top of the tower, which gives a view of the city of Elkhart that is unsurpassed, it being the highest accessible point in the city. The roof of tower is 115 feet from the pavement.
Passing down through the compounding room to the third floor, the guests came to the tank room, which contains four 1500-gallon tanks for the storage of medicine…
Mailing Room
In the mailing room, on this floor, are employed about eight months of the year twelve young ladies to mail an average of about 10,000 circulars a day. A statistical visitor figued out that this is an aggregate of about $20,000 to $25,000 for one cent postage each year, and concluded that it was no wonder he had some demand for Dr. Miles’ remedies.
Box Department
In the wing on the third floor over the press room is located the paper box and tubing department. The visitors noted some special machinery in this department for making tubes for Dr. Miles’ Pain Pills, and also observed a number of young ladies mounting the pictures for the window displays. The scoring machines for making pasteboard cartons are also there.
Job Press Department
The second floor contains the composing and job press department, where there are at present four job and color presses, and the guests were informed that the company had just ordered an automatic press for this department which will have a capacity equal to all of the presses installed on the floor. The firm set up all their own matter, and have a stereotyping department, where they make the plates for newspaper advertising. This department has used up 300,000 pounds of metal in the last six months for newspaper plates and bases.
Advertising Office
The newspaper advertising office, which is located directly over the main office, was then visited. Here are checked all the advertisements in the newspapers. The house has advertisements running in 12,000 daily and weekly papers, covering the United States from Hawaii to Maine and from Florida to Oregon. This department is a little world of its own, and is one of the most important features of the institution…
The visitors were finally conducted down stairs, back into the main office and left most favorably impressed with the institution of the Dr. Miles Medical Co. .
In 1904, Indiana’s Factory Inspection Report indicated that the facility employed a total of 200 people (80 males and 120 females), and according to this February 13, 1902 price list found in the “Pharmaceutical Era,” they were manufacturing at least eight patent medicines in addition to Nervine.
Based on the above referenced 1906 court records company sales around that time amounted to $500,000 per year.
According to Deahl’s 1905 “History and Biographical Record of Elkhart, Indiana,” the success of Miles’ patent medicine business led to the expansion of his medical practice.
The medical laboratory of the Dr. Miles Medical Company, at Elkhart, is one of the finest and largest in the country. The success and broad usefulness of this institution led to another. In order to extend economical treatment of patients at their homes, Dr. Miles established, also at Elkhart, The Dr. Miles Grand Dispensary. Here skilled specialists sift evidence of disease and prescribe treatment by mail according to the science of Neuropathy – the latest and most successful development of the healing art. Dr. Miles is the originator of the neuropathic method…
As far as I can tell, Dr. Miles “Grand Dispensary” was established around the turn of the century, not in Elkhart, but in Chicago, at 201 – 209 State Street. (At the time 1900 census records found Dr. Miles living in a Chicago boarding house).
The 1900’s version of today’s tele-medicine, one of the first advertisements that I can find, referring to it as the “Grand Dispensary” of Chicago, appeared in the November 20, 1901 edition of a publication called “The Telescope.” It was headlined:
The ad went on to provide Miles’ sales pitch:
During the last two or three years, very great improvement has been made in the treatment of diseases of the heart. Cases formerly considered incurable , now rapidly yield to new remedies. The well-known specialist in treating heart diseases, Franklin Miles. M.D., L.L.B. founder of the “Grand Dispensary of Chicago,” will send $2.50 of his new Special Treatment free to any of our afflicted readers.
This liberal offer is for the purpose of demonstrating the unusual curative powers of his New Treatments for heart troubles, such as short breath, pain in the side, oppression in the chest, irregular pulse, palpitation or dropsy…
These Treatments are prepared expressly for each patient, as the result is very much more certain and satisfactory…Send at once to the “Grand Dispensary,” 201 to 209 State St., Chicago, Ill., for free treatment before its too late…
The Chicago location appears to be short-lived. As early as November 12, 1902, a Grand Dispensary ad in “The Telescope” mentioned both Chicago and Elkhart locations and by 1904 only Elkhart was mentioned in his ads. By then according to Indiana’s Factory Inspection Report the Elkhart Dispensary employed 47 people (9 men and 38 women).
Ironically, Dr.Franklin Miles moved to Florida in 1906 due to heath reasons. That being said, as late as 1922, the Elkhart directories continued to list him as president of both the Grand Dispensary and the Dr. Miles Medical Company. Two years later, in 1924, the Grand Dispensary disappeared from the directories.
Miles continued to be listed as president of the Dr. Miles Medical Company until his death in 1929. After his death the business continued under the Dr. Miles Medicine Company name until 1932 when it reorganized as the Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc. The reorganization was announced in the September 15, 1932 edition of the “Indianapolis Star” under the heading “Incorporations.”
Several years later the company name was shortened to simply Miles Laboratories.
In 1935, the company began what became an exodus from their long-time home on Franklin Street when they relocated their advertising and printing department to McNaughten and Myrtle Streets. The announcement appeared in the March 3rd edition of the “South Bend Tribune.”
ELKHART FIRM BUYS PROPERTY
Negotiations for the purchase of the former Time-O-Stat plant at McNaughton and Myrtle Streets from the Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company were completed today by the Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc., of Elkhart.
Removal of printing presses and other machinery to the new property from the company’s main plant of West Franklin Street will start the latter part of this month. The expansion will provide additional space for the firm’s manufacturing business.
Two years later, the June 25, 1937 edition of the “South Bend Tribune” announced the company was building a factory and relocating their entire operation to Myrtle Street as well.
MILES TO BUILD $325,000 PLANT
One of the largest building permits ever issued in Elkhart was that today to the Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc., to erect a factory building at 1151 Myrtle Street, at a cost of $325,000. The permit fee was $807.40.
The company moved to the new location, pictured in the September 28, 1938 edition of the “Topeka (Indiana) Journal,” a year later.
The caption below the photo read in part:
The above picture shows the new home of “Alka-Selzer.” It is completely air conditioned and all of the products manufactured by the Miles Laboratories of Elkhart, Indiana, are made in this building…
When the plant is running at full capacity, there are employed about 600 people. 72 tons of “Alka-Selzer” is manufactured and shipped from here each week…
By this time, Miles Laboratories’ menu of products was growing exponentially and as the above caption suggests Alka-Seltzer, introduced in 1931, had become their top product and the one most closely associated with the company. That’s not to say Nervine became an afterthought as the company continued to advertise it liberally in newspapers during the 1940’s and 1950’s when it was promoted both individually and in connection with other Miles Laboratories’ products, as evidenced by the following two advertisements that appeared in 1945.
By the 1960’s Nervine advertisements had dropped off considerably but the product was still represented in a significant number of advertised drug store price lists.
The beginning of the end for Nervine came in 1975 with the release of a 308 page report detailing a study of nighttime sleep aids, daytime sedatives and stimulants commissioned by the FDA that was summarized in newspapers across the country on December 5, 1975. Specific to Nervine, the summary stated:
Boomides found in Miles Laboratories’ “Miles Nervine” and Miles Nervine Liquid,” marketed both as sleep aids and sedatives, were known to be poisonous at high dosage levels as early as the 19th century, the report said. There are numerous reports of cases of mental growth retardation among infants whose mothers took bromides during pregnancy, the report said.
That being said, in spite of the potential dangers, Nervine remained on the market as late as 1979. According to another story picked up by newspapers across the country on September 5th:
“There are still dangerous drugs you can get out there without a prescription, many containing bromides,” Wharton said. “One of the most common on the market is Miles Nervine. It is probably one of the most dangerous sedative drugs in that once you take it into the body, the body has very little capacity to get rid of it… It took a 17-year government battle to get the drug companies to take the bromide out.”
Finally, according to a February 15, 1980 story found in the Hollister, California “Free Lance,” Nervine met its end when Miles Laboratories refused to change their formula.
A popular by-gone preparation was MILES NERVINE. However Miles Nervine has gone the route of ORIGINAL formulas that made up DOANS PILLS, BROMO SELTZER, ANACIN, EMPIRIN, NYTOL AND SOMINEX. That route led to oblivion.
It is true that we no longer have Miles Nervine and Hadacol on pharmacy shelves, but Doans Pills, Bromo Seltzer, Anacin, Empirin, Nytol and Sominex all occupy prominent positions. The reason is their formulas changed while the brand names remain the same.
The change in formula occurred because the FDA considered the previous ingredients either unsafe or ineffective or both.
In the case of Miles Nervine the sedative ingredients were salts called BROMIDES. Bromides can cause a drowsiness or sedative effect but the amount to accomplish that can cause a skin rash and confusion. Bromide toxicity can occur in as little as 8 dose taking days.
In spite of Nervine’s troubles as late as 1977 the April 27th edition of the “South Bend Tribune” announced that Miles Laboratories, still headquartered in Elkhart, was producing record sales.
Sales of Miles Laboratories reached a new record high of $450 million during 1976, Dr. William Compton, board chairman and chief executive officer, told shareholders at the company’s 93rd annual meeting Tuesday night at Elkhart Central High School…
Referring to a 45-year growth, the board chairman reviewed the company’s sales growth from less than $2 million in the early 1930’s to the nearly half-billion mark, a compound rate of over 13 percent.
The story went on to provide this glimpse of the company at the time.
President Rowland G. Rose told the shareholders that Miles has 8,500 employees worldwide, 5,100 in this country and 3,400 abroad. The company operated through 29 subsidiary companies with 18 plants in the United States and 16 plants in 13 other countries.
Later that year the November 11, 1977 edition of the “South Bend Tribune” announced the sale of Miles Laboratories to AG Bayer.
Miles Laboratories, Inc., the city’s largest employer, is now owned by Rhinechem Laboratories, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer AG, a conglomerate based in West Germany…
As of the Wednesday deadline the German firm had made early payment for the purchase of almost 3.7 million shares. Payment for such shares pursuant to the offer will be made as soon as practical.
Residents of the Elkhart area hold a considerable amount of the Miles shares being sold, resulting in a sudden influx of sizable amounts of cash into the community.
At its peak the Elkhart facilities encompassed a 26 acre campus that employed as many as 3,300 people. It would all vanish by 2011. A story in the February 20, 2019 edition of the “South Bend Tribune” provided some key dates with respect to its demise in Elkhart as well as in another Indiana facility located in Mishawaka, Indiana.
The subject bottle was was blown in a mold with a tooled lip. It’s 8 inches tall with a cross section of 2-1/2 inches x 1-1/2 inches and contains 8 ounces. It almost certainly dates back to the company’s early years, likely around the turn of the century. This labeled example recently appeared for sale on the internet.
