I am adding a couple of chapters to the book.
For that I read several books on the history of beer.
Another topic I tackled in the reading was the connection between health and beer. This meant a bit of history since many historians claim that we have records of beer dating back to the early Egyptian culture.
Also, the link between Pabst “The Best” Tonic and patent medicines cannot be avoided. Thus I needed to read something about the popular nineteenth century patent medicines.
A book I just finished today is The Great American Fraud: The Patent Medicine Evil, written in 1905.
The book tells the story of how most patent medicine companies at that time sold harmful remedies for just about any illness.
The companies had newspapers in the palm of their hands. If any newspaper story ran critical of the patent medicines, the companies threatened to end a lucrative advertising contract with the paper.
The patent medicine companies advertized more than any other industry in newspapers, both dailies and weeklies. So the papers depended on their advertising money.