Source: Hart’s New Annual Army List (1854)

Three Good Questions

This is the next in an ongoing series of posts about historical research, featuring news articles, adverts, and other sources mostly from Britain in the 19th century.

Just for fun, imagine you stumbled across the advert above during your research. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing?

If you interrogate the image closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first? You can send me your suggestions via the form at the bottom of the page.

I’ll collate the questions, and begin to answer some of them, in a follow-up post. Subscribers to the ThreesWrite Newsletter will receive that before it’s published on the website.

Here are my first Three Good Questions:

1. Who was Mr. Meinig? (and was he in any way medically qualified?)
2. What did a two-ounce Galvanic Electro-Generator look like?
3. Was this blatant quackery or did it actually have some therapeutic benefits?

What Three Good Questions would you ask?