LEFT INSIDE: Grow Your Own Sprouts!

This is a 1970s era greeting card with a newsy letter that includes a helpful hint about growing alfalfa sprouts. It was left inside a copy of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, a short story collection of Holmesian pastiches and parodies that at one time aroused the ire of the Conan Doyle Estate.

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Transcription of the message for those of you unable to read script writing (I hear there are many people under the age of 25 who can't!):

Dearest Micah,

Do hope you are O.K. Not hearing from you am concerned.

After your phone call to me, sent you the little book, enclosed in my letter, re arthritis, and the literature in same about Zarumin. Did you get the book?

I am just taking the alfalfa tablets and eating alfalfa sprouts. Bought the seed in the health store.

In a small cake tin I sprinkle the bottom with water to hold seed.  Cover with aluminum paper and each morning, with a salt cellar filled with water, sprinkle the seed. In five days it's fully sprouted & I eat it. Delicious in salad.

If I buy it, I can't eat it fast enough, goes bad. This way it[']s always fresh.

Have a nice day.

Love,
Mildred

Oh yes, I had to Google Zarumin. I'll spare you the trouble. It was an old rheumatism and arthritis drug marketed from the 1950s through the late 1970s. My guess it's a defunct drug as its trademark has expired. It was developed by a company called Pharmaceuticals, Inc based in Newark NJ that also brought us such miracle drugs as Niron (appetite stimulant), Viragex (geriatric dietary supplement) and Chlorofem (relief of menstrual pain). The most bizarre thing I discovered is that each of these drug trademark registrations was filed under "Leather goods (non-clothing)". What? Were these drugs derived from leather? Or was it a huge error in the trademark filing process? Who knows.

Poor Mildred. At least she was eating fresh sprouts. And you ought to do the same! Sounds very easy to start your own sprout garden. What are you waiting for? Get those seeds now.