Description: Samuel M. Kier Pittsburgh, PA. Advertised 1852: “Verse: The healthful balm from Nature’s secret spring. The bloom of health and life to man will bring; As from her depths the magic liquid flows, to calm our sufferings, and assuage our woes’. Cured several cases of blindness. The petroleum in this respect is like mineral waters, whose virtues in most chronic diseases are acknowledged. Procured from a well in Allegheny County, PA four hundred feet below the ground (Courtesy Digger Odell’s Pontiled Medicine Encyclopedia).
Kier had salt wells that were becoming fouled with petroleum in the 1840’s. At first, Kier simply dumped the useless oil into the nearby Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, but after an oil slick caught fire, he saw a way to profit from this otherwise worthless byproduct. With no formal training in science or chemistry, he began experimenting with several distillates of the crude oil along with a chemist from eastern Pennsylvania. He developed a substance he named "Rock Oil" and later "Seneca Oil". In 1848, he began packaging the substance as a patent medicine charging $0.50 per bottle.
Embossed: S.M. KIER // PETROLEUM // PITTSBURGH, PA
Height: 6.5 " H.
Color: Ice Blue
Condition: Mint, open pontil.
Price: SOLD
Item No. 299 |