Fall Concoction from Zephyr Used & Rare Books

Zephyr Used & Rare Books recently issued their Fall Concoction - Catalogue October, 2025. A “concoction” is similar to a miscellany except perhaps indicating a greater variety of types or more in the way of unusual items. Here you will find books, but also documents, maps, photographs, etc. Put them in the category of collectible paper. Since a “concoction” is hard to describe with further clarity, we will jump right in to this latest Zephyr catalogue with a few examples of what they have concocted.

James B. Clow & Sons had cures for all sorts of things that ailed you back in 1907. Their focus was hydrotherapy, using water to cure your illness. Offered is The Clow Catalog of Sanitary Hospital Apparatus. Their catalogue included “diagrams, floor plans, and illustrations of the Clow Controller table for hydrotherapeutic fixtures, needle spray showers, immersion baths, Sitz bath and liver spray systems, the Italian Marble Shampoo Table, massage tables, and hot air cabinets. Of additional interest are the disturbingly dangerous electric full baths, and the white lacquered bath chair with Adamantose basins filled with AC or DC current mains, and wiring.” Electrically wired bathtubs? What could go wrong with that? Perhaps it relieved your suffering by putting you out of your misery. As for the “liver spray systems,” they don't literally spray your liver. You spray the medicine under your tongue and it is absorbed and somehow aids your liver. The catalogue displays the hydrotherapy apparatus working at the Ohio State Hospital for the Insane, which makes you wonder who was more insane, the patients or the doctors who installed these quack devices. Item 105. Priced at $550.

I'm not getting in this thing

Electrified tubs weren't the only way water could cure you in the 19^th century. You could go to mineral baths. In the days when there weren't actual cures, like antibiotics and vaccines, this was the most common choice. At least it felt like you were doing something. Winslow Anderson provided this very useful guide to mineral springs, particularly those in California. Which one was right for you? Here is your answer, Mineral Springs and Health Resorts of California, with a complete chemical analysis of every important mineral water in the World. It was, “a prize essay, annual Prize of the Medical Society of the State of California awarded April 20, 1889...” This second edition was published in 1892. “Details are offered by the author on how the Arrowhead Hot Springs could cure rheumatism and syphilis; Bear Valley kidney & bladder infections, Blodgett's Springs constipation, along with mentions of Native Americans finding cures in California mineral waters & geysers.” Item 43. $350.

We've seen some unsuccessful attempts at finding scientific cures that were based on faulty beliefs. Here is a book that includes scientific explanations and more that aren't based on much of anything, other than the author's extreme eccentricity. His name was Lyman E. Stowe and I have not been able to connect him to the more famous Stowe family. This Stowe was from Flint, Michigan. He was a prolific author writing about whatever came to his mind. This book is sort of a compilation of strange ideas. The title is Poetical Drifts of Thought, or, Problems of Progress. Treating upon the Mistakes of the Church...God is not the Maker of the Universe... Reconciliation of Science and Christianity... Stowe was self-admittedly a man of little education and limited writing skills. “...I know about as much of grammar as a cow does of military duty.” Maybe not quite as much. Fortunately, or not, it did not stop Stowe from writing a voluminous amount material. He reconciles religion and science by not understanding much about religion and less of science. He concludes everything comes together through the Zodiac – the Sun God and the Son of God are the same. Our creator is the Zodiac. He concludes that the Church has misconstrued Darwin's theories. However, this was hardly all, as Zephyr notes it includes “extensive sections in verse about aircraft shooting electric bolts at each other, how man will be able to teleport using electric current, a fascinating section on reviving the dead using electricity (he really believed in the power of electricity), and a very long ode to Detroit, Michigan, and how in the future it will be a Utopian city under a vast canopy growing tropical fruits.” Detroit is still working on it. However, it should be noted that Stowe was a believer in the Good Roads movement that led America to the creation of its extensive road system in the 1920s and 1930s, so he got that one right. Item 127. $1,250.

Next we have a photo archive of a most interesting off-road vehicle, but this is not one you would buy for your own personal use. Actually, you can't buy it anywhere as it was never built except for three prototypes. Besides, it was meant for military use. The U.S. Army was very interested around 1970 for use in the Vietnam War but ultimately rejected it. It was something of a reconnaissance vehicle/tank. It could be armed or unarmed. It was an eight-wheeled vehicle but much more flexible than, say, a tractor trailer, because it was composed of two four-wheeled sections with separate engines attached by a pivot, allowing for 30 degrees of direction adjustment between the two. It was very suitable for the most difficult of terrain. There apparently was a bit of a tipping issue but the major reason the army rejected the vehicle was because of the level of complexity and difficulty in being able to make repairs in the field. This archive consists of 164 photographs that were once held by Lockheed. Item 44. $1,250.

This is a photoplay edition for a 1942 film biography of Lou Gehrig. I imagine these days there are many people who recognize his name from the common name given to the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but who don't know much about the person. It is a terrible and as yet incurable disease that causes loss of muscle control and eventually death. It is commonly called Lou Gehrig's Disease as people became familiar with the the hard-to-remember named illness when Lou Gehrig got it back in the late 1930s. Gehrig was a great and very well-known baseball player who was a teammate of Babe Ruth on some of the great Yankee baseball teams, but only Ruth still has the same level of fame today. Gehrig was a repeated all-star, MVP, once a triple crown winner with a lifetime batting average of .340 and 493 home runs. What he was most famous for was his record streak of playing in 2,130 straight games, a once believed unbreakable record that was finally broken 56 years later. That streak would have grown more but Gehrig took himself out of a game when his performance deteriorated. He would soon learn of the tragic reason why. The Yankees brought him back to Yankee Stadium for “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day,” shared by almost 62,000 people, where he gave his famed speech saying, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” He was greatly moved by the support of the fans. The photoplay book and film are titled Lou Gehrig, Pride of the Yankees. The book had an introduction by star Yankee catcher from the era, Bill Dickey, and the film starred Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Walter Brennan, and Babe Ruth as himself. Item 63. $55.

Zephyr Used & Rare Books may be reached at 360-695-7767 or zephyrbook@gmail.com.