Long, promotional copy would dramatize "women's weakness", "hysteria", and other themes commonly referenced at the time.

Pinkham urged women to write to her personally, and she would maintain the correspondence in order to expose the customer to more persuasive claims for the remedy.

Pinkham and her "medicinal compound" for feminine disorders became the subject of a bawdy drinking song, "Lily the Pink", of which a sanitized version became a number one hit by The Scaffold in the United Kingdom.

Pinkham was born in the manufacturing city of Lynn, Massachusetts, the tenth of the twelve children of William and Rebecca Estes.

William Estes was originally a shoemaker but by the time Lydia was born in 1819, he had become wealthy through dealing in real estate and had risen to the status of "gentleman farmer".

The Estes' household was a gathering place for local and visiting abolitionist leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison.

[6] Whatever truth may be in this, the ingredients of her remedy were generally consistent with the herbal knowledge available to her through such sources as John King's American Dispensary, which she is known to have owned and used.

Although mercury was not an ingredient of Pinkham's compound, the unreliable nature of medicines was sufficiently well known to be the subject of a popular comic song.

These staff-written answers combined forthright talk about women's medical issues, advice, and, of course, recommendations for the company product.

The clinic has been controlled since 1990 by Stephen Nathan Doty, a fourth-generation descendant of Lydia, who also uses the memorial building as his personal residence.

"[17] The popularity of Pinkham's compound long after her death is testament to its acceptance by women who sought relief from menstrual and menopausal symptoms.

[20] Although Lydia Pinkham's company continued increasing profit margins 50 years after her death, eventually the advent of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) caused changes in the formula.

In 2005–6 the National Institutes of Health performed a "12-month randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, [which] compared several herbal regimens and menopausal hormone therapy (estrogen with or without progesterone) to placebo in women ages 45 to 55 [...] Newton and colleagues found no significant difference between the number of daily hot flashes and/or night sweats in any of the herbal supplement groups when compared to the placebo group.

A further reason that a humble women's tonic could become the subject of such a song – and an increasing success in the twenties and early thirties – was its availability as a 40 proof drink during the Prohibition era.

[24] The Irish Rovers also released the Scaffold version of the song in 1969, on the album Tales to Warm Your Mind and, as a single, it reached the Top 30 on the US Billboard charts.

[citation needed] The song was successfully adapted into French in 1969 by Richard Anthony, humorously describing the devastating effects of a so-called "panacée" (universal medicine).