“Dog Nearly Itches to Death”

Late yesterday I returned home to find Russell, our Jack Russell terrier, in obvious discomfort. He was scratching his trunk, furiously thumping his back paw up and down like the piston rods on a steam locomotive. Every so often, he would stop and twist his head 180 degrees, Exorcist-style, to nip at an itchy spot near his tail, then resume his frenetic scratching. That’s when it hit me: I had forgotten to take him to the vet for his monthly allergy shot. 

Lest you report me to the Humane Society for cruelty, I called the vet first thing this morning, he said to bring him over immediately, and he (Russell, not the vet) is, as I write, curled up sleeping on the sofa beside me, mercifully itch-free. 

Driving home from the vet, an ad from my youth popped into my head — an ad I bet every reader my age and better remembers.  Headlined, “Dog Nearly Itches to Death.” it appeared in newspapers, magazines and on the back page of just about every comic book I read in the 1960s. No matter how often I saw it, I could never resist reading it again because the visual didn’t match the text. It featured a photo — not of a dog, but of a middle-age woman with an incongruous Joker-like smile.

Introductory text was a testimonial supposedly written by the woman, identified as “Mrs. John Burmester of New Jersey,” a state to which millions of people and dogs are allergic, including me. 

Mrs. Bumester wrote, “I thought we would have to put Daisy to sleep …but I could never do this. I suffered as she suffered almost two years with large running, itching sores. I had almost given up trying things when I came across Sulfodene. Now her back is all healed, her hair is coming in thick. The Lord should bless you for such a fine product.”

The ad goes on to reveal that Sulfodene was discovered by Dr. A.C. Merrick, a “famous veterinary scientist,” and that it “works fast to stop fungus, itch, heal itch-sores (often called mange, eczema, hot spots)" and is “so soothing, the most frenzied itching is relieved almost instantly.”

An internet search found a veterinarian by the same name who practiced in Illinois between 1920 and 1950, so I’m guessing (but not sure) Sulfodene was “discovered” by him.  A.C. Merrick was sued in the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1950 for trademarking Sulfodene by someone who claimed the name infringed on the names of brands he had trademarked that also included the prefix “sulfa.” Dr. Merrick prevailed — the case was dismissed.

While Mrs. Burmester was not identified by her first name — married women back then hadn’t yet been liberated so they often dropped both their first and last names and placed “Mrs.” in front of their husbands’ names — I could find no record of anyone named “John Burmester” in New Jersey in the 1960s.  I found a John Burmeister (notice the “i” after the “e”) who was born and died in Iowa and married a “Clara Burmeister” (hopefully not a close relative),  but no Burmester. I did, however, find a Laura Burmester who, as of April, 1950, lived at 974 Amboy in Raritan Township, Middlesex, New Jersey,  Born in 1906, she died in 1985. The “Mrs. John Burmester” in the photo above is of indeterminate age — she could have been anywhere from 40 to 70 — so perhaps it was Laura Burmester who wrote the testimonial, in which case I hope she earned lots of scratch from Sulfodene for allowing her face to appear on millions of pages. 

I hope that when she arrived at the Pearly Gates, the Good Lord forgave Mrs. John Burmester for invoking His holy name for commercial purposes — after all, she did it to relieve the suffering of her dog which, not coincidentally as far as this dog-lover is concerned, is God spelled backwards — and that she is having a swell time up there with Daisy whose “large, running itching sores” are gone for eternity.

While it’s almost certain that the woman in the photo is no longer with us, Sulfodene most definitely is and it’s sold both online and in pet stores. 

I just may buy some next time I go to PetSmart and keep it on hand in case I ever forget to schedule Russell's monthly allergy shot again.