Dr. E.C. Balm

Dr. E Cooper ‘s Universal Magnetic Balm was first advertised, here in the west, sometime in the mid 1860’s. There is a bit of speculation on whether or not the E.C. Balm is a western manufactured product.
Advertisements from the Sacramento Daily Union during the 1867 time frame list W.R. Strong as the Proprietor of the product doing business at Nos. 5 and 9 J Street in Sacramento California. Later advertisements from 1868-69’ period list Redington & Co. from San Francisco as sole agents for the product.


Tim Higgins, in his book, “Early Medicine and Apothecary Bottles of the Old West” lists an E.C. Balm with W.R. Strong embossed on one side panel and Sacramento embossed on the other side panel and considers this bottle extremely rare. Tim also relates this bottle comes with the signature western curved “R”.

The two examples of the E.C. Balm in my collection are embossed only on the front panel “Dr. E.C. BALM” do not have curved “R’s” or embossing on the side panels. Each example is from a different mold and the tops on the bottles are completely different. Both of these bottles are fairly crude, have that deep aqua colored glass and quite possibly were blown here in a western glass house.

As with most of the medicines that were marketed early, the Dr. E.C. Balm claims to cure everything from Dysentery, burns and bruises to fever and Ague. And, of course, it was recommended for the entire family.

The E.C. Balm, in my opinion, is an interesting, fairly scarce western distributed medicine bottle that is still an affordable piece of western history.