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Carter's Little Liver Pills

Logo: This file was contributed to Wikimedia Commons by Boston Public Library as part of a cooperation project. The donation was facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America . Record in source catalog DPLA identifier: 38d728906dcb74a7d2b3cbd394af8898 Boston Public Library identifier: Local accessi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

American patent medicine

Carter's Little Liver Pills (Carter's Little Pills after 1959) were formulated as a patent medicine by Samuel J. Carter of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1868.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

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Advert for Carter's Little Liver Pills Wellcome L0040448
Photo: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/d6/7a/1044ce8051398cd2c299ef4fa810.jpg Gallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0040448.html Wellcome Collection gallery (2018-03-23): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/p6wp2jvv CC-BY-4.0, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons5

Carter's Little Liver Pills (Carter's Little Pills after 1959) were formulated as a patent medicine by Samuel J. Carter of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1868.2

The story

Carter's trademark was a black crow. By 1880 the business was incorporated as Carter Products. The pills were touted to cure headache, constipation, dyspepsia, and biliousness. In the late 19th century, they were marketed in the UK by the American businessman John Morgan Richards.

Carter's Little Liver Pills predated the other available forms of bisacodyl and was a very popular and heavily advertised patent medicine up until the 1960s, spawning a common saying (with variants) in the first half of the 20th century: "He/She has more [whatever things] than Carter has Little Liver Pills". In 1951 the Federal Trade Commission required the company to change the name to "Carter's Little Pills", since "liver" in the name was deceptive.

From Wikipedia’s article on Carter's Little Liver Pills, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Sources

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