BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

These drugs were American patent medicines that claimed to cure nervous headache and
tremors, and amenorrhea and dysmenorrhea, respectively. Other advertisements were for
Japanese products, like Chujoto, “the best medicine for female complaints in the world,” which
pictured a happy family as well as English transliterations of Japanese words (see Figure 5.2). 550
In this image, a man is shown holding a happy baby while the woman looks on. This Japanese
herbal supplement, to help restore women’s hormonal balance and promote relaxation, is still
being sold today. These products, which were widely marketed in the U.S. and abroad, are not
so different from the advertisements in women’s magazines in the twenty-first century that
peddle pharmaceuticals to combat depression, obesity, allergies, and headaches. 551 In some
newspapers, advertisements for fertility clinics appeared side-by-side with those for a syphilis
specialist, illustrating the connection between sexually transmitted diseases and infertility. A
couple could partake of one-stop shopping: the husbands went to one clinic to be treated for
syphilis, while their wives, who had acquired the disease from their husbands and had
subsequently become infertile, went next door to be treated not for the disease but for the
inability to conceive.
550 Funu zazhi 1.1.1915.
551 Thanks to Susan Sommers for this insight.
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