Lifting the lid

I was intrigued to see these old ointment jars in a local junk shop. This Mannina ointment was made right here in Fishguard around the turn of the 19th/20th century but its actual provenance is unknown. There was apparently a Mannina company in Main Street producing 3 versions of the stuff but where exactly, who by and what it contained I cannot discover.

A letter in a local newspaper dated 1902 asserts its efficacy in curing both the writer's chronic leg ulcers and his son's lifelong psoriasis, but was that a genuine unsolicited testimonial or a contribution from the ointment maker's second cousin? Was the salve concocted in the belief that it had real therapeutic properties or was it a profitable ploy to raise the hopes of the desperately ill, including cancer sufferers?
And why Mannina? It appears to be the name given to the single genus of a Mexican moth, and of a Italian family hailing from Corleone (!) Sicily in the 18th century.

There's nothing new in quackery and nostrums. There have been countless versions of cures and therapies trading on the hopes, fears and desperation of the sick and dying but it was in the Victorian period that the craze for magical medications burgeoned, aided by advertising and new scientific advances. The Mannina ointment jar is among a collection of such pots of promise described and illustrated here.

Advertising cancer cures was outlawed in Britain the Cancer Act of 1939 which is still being invoked today. See for example this man who just a few years ago advised women that wearing a bra increased your risk of breast cancer.
In the United States Gerson therapy remains popular with the rich and famous despite having been shown to be of no use at all.

However, there remains the possibility that in rejecting all non-standard cancer treatments there's a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Curiously enough, another cure for cancer was being promoted not far from Fishguard, also in the early years of the 20th century, by two farming brothers, John and Daniel Evans, in a small village just outside Cardigan, 20 miles up the coast. Their therapeutic oil gained such repute that their farm was swamped by ailing customers and all sorts of grandiose claims were made of its curative properties. Eventually the British Medical Association summoned them to London and pronounced their claims were fraudulent, their magic potion useless. The recipe died with them.
However, in recent years the Cardigan Cancer Cure has received renewed attention when it was discovered that one of its components was red clover which 'may' be beneficial in treating cancer.
You can read something about that here and lots more about the mysterious Evans brothers here.