Chasing History with Lando Bando

02/18/2025

THIS VICTORIAN-ERA PREDECESSOR TO ADVIL/PEPTO WAS LEADING TO DEATHS AND AMERICANS ARE STILL INGESTING ONE OF THE INGREDIENTS IN OUR FOOD IN 2025?!?! (READ ON TO FIND OUT) (Long but honestly way wilder/more scandalous than I would have ever thought and took me hours to research and put this together haha)

When compared to other Victorian medicines of the time, Hick's Capudine was actually NOT "snake oil" but it was still VERY dangerous and actually responsible for deaths. It was promoted to cure headaches, colds, la grippe, neuralgia, sick headache, nervous headache, hangover headache, acidity, flatulency, indigestion and pains. It contained Salicylates: a group of drugs that includes Aspirin and salicylic acid (which is still used in Pepto-Bismol). It also contained caffeine... so it was actually effective!

BUT... it also contained these 2 ingredients (Antipyrine, Bromide), which have been largely discontinued in medicines due to the potential for VERY SERIOUS SIDE EFFECTS and until 2024 the latter was STILL ALLOWED IN USA FOOD AND IS ONLY BEING PHASED OUT AUGUST THIS YEAR 🤦🏼‍♂️ :

Antipyrine (analgesic and antipyretic):

According to Synapse by Petsnap, "is effective for pain and inflammation, [but] it is not without potential side effects. Local irritation, allergic reactions, gastrointestinal disturbances, central nervous system impacts, blood disorders, and liver dysfunction represent the spectrum of possible adverse effects." The NIH notes that it is non-narcotic but also an "enviornmental contaminant", and historical documents from the time Capudine was popular described it as having fatal consequences due to its "heart depressing" effects.

Bromide (an anticonvulsent):

According to the CDC it was "historically used in medicine as a sedative and is naturally found in the earth's crust and seawater".. and is a "bromine" that can cause Bromism: "once a very common disorder, being responsible for 5 to 10% of psychiatric hospital admissions" (CDC) Also, bromine is chemically added to vegetable oil, making Brominated Vegetable Oil" (BVO), and despite being banned in multiple countries for decades and all of EU in 2008 is only being phased out of American food now. "The final rule banning BVO took effect August 2, 2024, and beverage companies have one year to reformulate their products to comply with the final rule... One case reported that a man who consumed two to four liters of a soda containing BVO on a daily basis experienced memory loss, tremors, fatigue, loss of muscle coordination, headache, and ptosis of the right eyelid, as well as elevated serum chloride." (Wikipedia: Brominated Vegetable Oil)

Baffles me how behind the USA STILL is sometimes on the chemical things they put in our food. But here's where early 1900s corporate America put profit over people. 😢 (Weird how some themes seem to be timeless). They purposefully ran ads that hid one of its dangerous ingredients by marketing that their product didn't contain a completely other drug. Here's the background and how:

From the September 15, 1908 edition of the "Atlanta Constitution":

"FUNERAL OF MRS WINBURN
Her Death Was Due to Overdose of Capudine
The sudden death of Mrs. Joe Winburn at Mansfield yesterday, was due to an overdose of capudine for periodic headaches. She was the wife of Rev. Joe Winburn, Baptist pastor at Mansfield, and leaves five small children. the oldest being 9.

One month later the American Medical Association published in their journal, "This puts the nostrum in the dangerous class of “patent medicines,” increasingly common of late, in which a heart depressing drug is present but one, unfortunately, which the Food and Drug Act does not require to be specifically named on the label." This heart depressing hidden drug it mentions was Antipyrine.

The Hick's company at this point did something really shady. "In response, the Capudine Chemical Company dug in, running advertisements promoting the fact that Capudine did not contain Acetanilid with no mention of the fact that it did contain its cousin and equally dangerous heart depressant, antipyrine. One such advertisement appeared in the December, 1919 edition of “The American Druggist.”" (baybottles.com) (Picture included in post)

Despite how shady this was, at the end of the day, as James Little of Hatch, Little & Bunn (the present day law firm who owned the inventor's home for their law office) says , this drug was a "predecessor to the over the counter pain and fever relievers of today." (James Little, "Drug Crimes. 2017.) And in this way it serves as an important step in our evolution in modern medicine and in finding effective and safe medicines.

In-depth history and images not of my bottle: https://baybottles.com/tag/henry-t-hicks-company/

https://synapse.patsnap.com/article/what-are-the-side-effects-of-antipyrine

https://www.cdc.gov/chemical-emergencies/chemical-fact-sheets/bromine.html

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Antipyrine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brominated_vegetable_oil

02/17/2025

👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hey everyone, one of my 2025 goals is to get this page back going again! I wanted to give an update as to why I haven't been posting for a few months:

My inspiration for this page is primarily the micro-history of antiques and curiosities and also secondarily the history of some abandoned places. My apartment complex came to me last year and told me they were tearing my building down and I had to move immediately. So everything in my house had to be thrown into boxes at last minute notice and put into a new place.

I had spent hours and hours over 4 years intricately decorating and personalizing my space.. between the 4 years hundreds of hours. So having to immediately move was very disorienting and discouraging and I fell a bit into a depressed and uninspired place. I spent a long time debating whether I should even unpack and decorate my new place as I'd said I didn't want to leave my old place until I bought a house as the setup was just too much work to do again.

Surrounded by boxes rather than my antiques and curiosities stifled creativity and I didnt know where anything was to do posts and history on and didn't want to solely do abandoned places as this is not just an exploring page.

In 2025 I decided enough is enough and I've organized and put all my stuff up in the new place. Rediscovering interesting things I'd forgotten I even had has been inspiring and I'm ready to start posting again!

Ive got a new post coming tomorrow about one of those Victorian medicines! I hope everyone enjoys it and that the Facebook algorithm won't hide my posts too much haha

Much love to you all ❤️

09/10/2024

200 watt bulbs used to illuminate this now abandoned iron ore mine

09/09/2024

200 year old mansion!

09/01/2024

08/30/2024

Video and history of this coming soon! Sorry for not posting much, all my curiosities are in boxes so I haven't had much odd history to share!

08/25/2024

Listen to that 🔔 ring! Built in 1903 this small school in Manhattan KS held class until the 1940s!!

Sadly a fire destroyed the original building in 1927, but they rebuilt it using the same stone walls. In 1929 they built a little cute merry-go-round which you can see the remnants of in this video as well! 🎠 Can you imagine the Midwestern kids 100 years ago running in and out of this amazing place?

The best part? This little gem is actively being restored by "Pals of The Rocky Ford School"! I'll leave a link in the comments to the page all about these efforts! If only we could have back to school for kids in a building like this!!

08/24/2024

This jail building was originally an asylum building at the once largest insane asylum in the world! Once the emergence of psych meds and destitutionalization took its toll on this asylum, some of the buildings were still pretty new and couldn't be wasted. 😫

Since they were made to be asylums they weren't constructed to the same safety standards as a normal prison and therefore had to have several times more staff than a normal prison would. Eventually the state decided they could no longer justify this cost and in the 2000s they were all closed and the prisoners sent to other prisons around the state!

This building has no stairs, has bathtubs, and wheelchairs, leading me to believe it was probably used to house inmates with health issues, disabled or elderly. There's also huge windows all around making the entire prison very well lit up with beautiful natural light! ☀️

08/21/2024

Civil War cannonball hole still in the front bricks in a bizarre Confederate victory?!?!? Yall, this is a wild one! 🤯🤯 Long caption but I promise worth it to read.

This church is 190 years old and sits in a semi-abandoned ghost town only accessible via sometimes water impassable dirt roads. The Mississippi River used to flow near here but has since routed differently although it still sits in the flood zone. This sets us up for this wild story! 🖤🖤

This small town was in a ripe location for contentious Civil War battles. Since it was close to the Mississippi River, Union soldiers apparently would stand on the deck of their ship on Sundays to watch the Southern gals all dressed for church. I can just see in my minds eye Victorian women in corsets and frilly dresses with parasols sauntering around! Wish I could see for myself!! 😍😍 But here's where it gets interesting:

Some of the Union soldiers decided they just couldnt resist these lovely gals and broke command and left the ship to go to this Presbyterian Church, with the pastor's blessing, to see the Lord's handiwork up closer 🤣.. Well, they were deep in Confederate territory and whilst singing hymns the Confederates weren't real fond of this so they came on horseback 🏇, entered, and a gunfight ensued. Congregates ducked and hid and the Union boat shot a cannonball through the front of the church. 😬😬 Can you imagine being in there!??!?!

The Confederates captured 17 of the men who tried to mack on the local gals though which led to the only Union ironclad gun boat taken down by Calvary. WILD! This place is WORTHY of being preserved!

08/20/2024

Built in 1911 this home also served as a funeral home at one time! ⚰️

John Wesley Dutton was a lumber, turpentine and citrus businessman in Florida in the Victorian era. He was born in Georgia on April 14, 1868. He built this house for 25,000$ and lived there with his wife and 7 kids. He would pass away in 1925 and a funeral home would purchase the property.

The next chapter of this stunning mansion would be as the Grffith-Stith Funeral Parlor. 😍 The Stiths were Kentuckians who moved from KY to FL and eventually GA. The whole family was in the funeral business.

Believe it or not, it would then also have a couple more lives before falling into disrepair and abandonment. It would serve as a hotel or sorts and eventually as the Colonial Arms Aparments but was shut down due to code violations. Since then there has been a back and forth fight between demolition and restoration.

Last time I went was in 2019. I hope progress has commenced and it's on its way to becoming the home it should be. It's too pretty and too historic!

My information and the historic photos came from Abandoned Florida. Link in comments.

08/16/2024

I will have more oddities and curiosities to share with yall soon! Been in the middle of a move.. so between work during the day and moving at night I have been exhausted. Until then, enjoy this cute church nestled on an asylum campus! 💚

08/15/2024

I absolutely love this post. This was one of my first explores I did after moving to Georgia! Love that Peter has done such justice with this picture and digging up some history 💚

🌟 Throwback to 1947! 🌟

The State Line Court in Tennga was a popular stop along US Highway 411, right at the Tennessee- Georgia line 🛣️

🍔🥤 With a bustling restaurant and store next door, it was the perfect respite for travellers before interstates changed the game.

🗺️ Did you know?

Tennga gets its name from merging ‘Tenn-‘ for Tennessee and ‘-ga’ for Georgia, reflecting its unique split along the border!

Fast forward to the early 70s; the motel, along with the restaurant and store, was closed 🛑

Today, the building is still used for storage by the son of the original owner, who we had the pleasure of chatting with on our visit! 💚

08/14/2024

Allen's Invalid Home for the Treatment of Nervous Diseases was built in 1891 as a private alternative to the nearby state "Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum" which opened in 1842 on the university property.

Allen was born on a plantation in 1956 to James Troup Allen, a former confederate soldier, and Temporance (Moran) Allen. He graduated from Atlanta medical school where he got his doctorate in 1879.

The sanitarium he started had a great reputation for service and medical technology at the time and could house 75 patients at one point. He was a Knights Templar Mason, member of the Mystic Shrine, and affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

This information came from: "Georgia:comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons arranged in cyclopedic form ... Allen Daniel Candler, Clement Anselm Evans. State historical association, 1906." I will post a link in the comments.

At the end of the video is pictures of postcards of what it looked like in the past!

08/12/2024

This lovely house sits in a semi-ghost town. About half of the buildings in this very small rural community are abandoned or disused. I can't find much information online about this house nor can I find an address registeted to it on Google maps or any other site. However, it's in the historic district which would date it between 1885-1920.

08/10/2024

The architect of NYC's central park made his mark on the area of Atlanta this church was constructed in! I was lucky to see this landmark Atlanta church in the Druid Hills neighborhood before it became repurposed as condos!

This church was built in 1957 for (at the time) 275k.. now a single condo is over 600k! The Druid Hills area was actually planned out by Frederick Law Olmsted, the planner of the famous Centeal Park, in 1890. The first family to build a house in this area was the Candler family around the turn of the 20th century.

According to "Atlanta Magazine", "What’s thought to be Druid Hill’s first home was built around 1900 by the Candler family, across the street from the park’s entrance, but by the middle of the century it had fallen into disrepair and was razed. This set the stage for what a 1951 fundraising campaign called a gleaming modern sanctuary large enough to host 840 worshippers at once, topped with “a new landmark” tower standing 125 feet that “points each passerby to God, our Maker.”

Druid Hill Methodist Church, a congregation of nearly 3,000 bursting at the seams in nearby Inman Park, had purchased the Candler land for $50,000 in 1946. To help quickly raise $275,000 for the new church’s construction, a “Day of Destiny Banquet” was held in Midtown’s Biltmore Hotel. In what may have been the understatement of that year, campaigners noted of the Druid Hills site: “Careful students of our city’s expansion agree that Atlanta is expanding residentially in this direction and beyond.”"

The first pic is one I've taken.. the rest are "courtesy of Minerva", the company who bought the property.

Link in comments to the Atlanta Magazine article

08/08/2024

Riverfront resort for the 1996 olympics?!?! Well, that was the hope at one point. The Higdon Hotel was constructed in 1878 but was much smaller and originally a home for a woman Harriet Dodson before the Higdon family purchased it.

In 1890 the railroad came to this small town and the Higdon family doubled the size of the original building and made it a boarding house of sorts for managers associated with the installation of the railroad. The workers however were welcome to come for food, even though the rooms were reserved for their bosses.

Once the railroad brought passengers into the city it officially became a resort as it sits right on the Hiwassee river until passenger railroad cars became a thing of the past and there were not enough visitors to keep the place afloat. In the 70s an effort came about to restore and protect this place, getting it listed on the National Register of Historic Places... but the final plans never came to fruition. They had even hoped at one point that it would be restored enough to host visitors traveling to Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics.

Despite the efforts, it sits falling apart.. leaving behind a rich history of past times and giving a view into the evolution of transportation in the USA. Link to more info in comments.

08/08/2024

Read down for history of clock! This will be included in our art show in 3 days! Would love for yall to come say hi!! Here is a piece from Go West Wanderlust! At The Suffering Artist

Here is his description which lists the history!! : "🕰️ Time Waits for No One 🕰️

The "Big Ben of North Wales", this iconic 12-foot diameter clock has stood tall since the 1930s.

A beacon for millions of motorists who pass each year, a navigational aid for sailors, and a daily reminder for generations of locals who relied on it to set their routines. 🚢

This clock's legacy is now being reclaimed by nature🌳but it continues to keep perfect time. ⏳️"

08/07/2024