The giver of oxygen: Hercules Sanche and the oxydonor

Abstract

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, gas-pipes were among the most popular therapeutic devices available to an unhealthy public. Spurred on by the explosion of print advertising, mail-order gas-pipes were questionable remedies promoted for such diverse conditions as pneumonia and neurasthenia. Though they are an interesting part of the social history of questionable therapeutics, no historian has recently looked in depth at these devices. This paper examines the clinical, social, and economic environment that facilitated the success of the most ubiquitous gas-pipe, the Oxydonor, and its proprietor, Hercules Sanche.