anything he had yet attempted—about fifteen hundred yards—but far more important was the fact that it would be his first try at sending a signal to a receiver out of sight and thus beyond the reach of any existing optical means of communication. If Alfonso received the signal, he was to fire his shotgun.
The attic was hot, as always. Bees snapped past at high velocity and confettied the banks of flowers below. In a nearby grove silver-gray trees stood stippled with olives.
Slowly the figures in the field shrank with distance and began climbing the Celestine Hill. They continued walking and eventually disappeared over its brow, into a haze of gold.
The house was silent, the air hot and still. Marconi pressed the key on his transmitter.
An instant later a gunshot echoed through the sun-blazed air.
At that moment the world changed, though a good deal of time and turmoil would have to pass before anyone was able to appreciate the true meaning of what just had occurred.
E ASING THE S ORE P ARTS
D ESPITE THE P ANIC OF ’93, one branch of medicine expanded: the patent medicine industry. The depression may even have driven the industry’s growth, as people who felt they could not afford to pay a doctor decided instead to try healing themselves through the use of home remedies that could be ordered through the mail or bought at a local pharmacy. That the industry was indeed booming was hard to miss. All Crippen had to do was open a newspaper to see dozens of advertisements for elixirs, tonics, tablets, and salves that were said to possess astonishing properties. “Does your head feel as though someone was hammering it; as though a million sparks were flying out of the eyes?” one company asked. “Have you horrible sickness of the stomach? Burdock Blood Bitters will cure you.”
One of the most prominent patent medicine advertisers was the Munyon Homeopathic Home Remedy Co., headquartered in Philadelphia. Photographs and sketched portraits of its founder and owner, Prof. J. M. Munyon, appeared in many of the company’s advertisements and made his face one of the most familiar in America and, increasingly, throughout the world. The Munyon glaring out from company advertisements was about forty, with a scalp thickly forested with dark unruly hair and a forehead so high and broad that the rest of his features seemed pooled by gravity at the bottom of his face. His firm-set mouth anchored an expression of sobriety and determination, as if he had sworn to wipe out illness the world over. “I will guarantee that my Rheumatism Care will relieve lumbago, sciatica and all rheumatic pains in two or three hours, and cure in a few days.” A vial of the stuff could be found, he promised, at “all druggists” for twenty-five cents, and indeed small wooden cabinets produced by his company stood in almost every pharmacy, packed with cures for all manner of ailments but highlighting his most famous product, a hemorrhoid salve called Munyon’s Pile Ointment, “For Piles, blind or bleeding, protruding or internal. Stops Itching almost immediately, allays inflammation and gives ease to sore parts. We recommend it for Fissure, Ulcerations, Cracks and such anal troubles.”
In other advertisements Professor Munyon allied his remedies with the Good Lord himself. Wearing the same stern expression, he thrust his arm toward the heavens and urged readers not simply to buy his products but also to “Heed the Sign of the Cross.” Later, during the Spanish-American War, he would publish sheet music for “Munyon’s Liberty Song,” with photographs of Pres. William McKinley, Adml. George Dewey, and other important officials on the front cover, but a single large photograph of himself on the back, implicitly tying his name to the great men of the age.
In 1894 Crippen applied for a job at Munyon’s New York office, on East Fourteenth Street off Sixth Avenue, at that time one of New York’s wealthier neighborhoods. Something about
The attic was hot, as always. Bees snapped past at high velocity and confettied the banks of flowers below. In a nearby grove silver-gray trees stood stippled with olives.
Slowly the figures in the field shrank with distance and began climbing the Celestine Hill. They continued walking and eventually disappeared over its brow, into a haze of gold.
The house was silent, the air hot and still. Marconi pressed the key on his transmitter.
An instant later a gunshot echoed through the sun-blazed air.
At that moment the world changed, though a good deal of time and turmoil would have to pass before anyone was able to appreciate the true meaning of what just had occurred.
E ASING THE S ORE P ARTS
D ESPITE THE P ANIC OF ’93, one branch of medicine expanded: the patent medicine industry. The depression may even have driven the industry’s growth, as people who felt they could not afford to pay a doctor decided instead to try healing themselves through the use of home remedies that could be ordered through the mail or bought at a local pharmacy. That the industry was indeed booming was hard to miss. All Crippen had to do was open a newspaper to see dozens of advertisements for elixirs, tonics, tablets, and salves that were said to possess astonishing properties. “Does your head feel as though someone was hammering it; as though a million sparks were flying out of the eyes?” one company asked. “Have you horrible sickness of the stomach? Burdock Blood Bitters will cure you.”
One of the most prominent patent medicine advertisers was the Munyon Homeopathic Home Remedy Co., headquartered in Philadelphia. Photographs and sketched portraits of its founder and owner, Prof. J. M. Munyon, appeared in many of the company’s advertisements and made his face one of the most familiar in America and, increasingly, throughout the world. The Munyon glaring out from company advertisements was about forty, with a scalp thickly forested with dark unruly hair and a forehead so high and broad that the rest of his features seemed pooled by gravity at the bottom of his face. His firm-set mouth anchored an expression of sobriety and determination, as if he had sworn to wipe out illness the world over. “I will guarantee that my Rheumatism Care will relieve lumbago, sciatica and all rheumatic pains in two or three hours, and cure in a few days.” A vial of the stuff could be found, he promised, at “all druggists” for twenty-five cents, and indeed small wooden cabinets produced by his company stood in almost every pharmacy, packed with cures for all manner of ailments but highlighting his most famous product, a hemorrhoid salve called Munyon’s Pile Ointment, “For Piles, blind or bleeding, protruding or internal. Stops Itching almost immediately, allays inflammation and gives ease to sore parts. We recommend it for Fissure, Ulcerations, Cracks and such anal troubles.”
In other advertisements Professor Munyon allied his remedies with the Good Lord himself. Wearing the same stern expression, he thrust his arm toward the heavens and urged readers not simply to buy his products but also to “Heed the Sign of the Cross.” Later, during the Spanish-American War, he would publish sheet music for “Munyon’s Liberty Song,” with photographs of Pres. William McKinley, Adml. George Dewey, and other important officials on the front cover, but a single large photograph of himself on the back, implicitly tying his name to the great men of the age.
In 1894 Crippen applied for a job at Munyon’s New York office, on East Fourteenth Street off Sixth Avenue, at that time one of New York’s wealthier neighborhoods. Something about
Similar Books
