At first glance, the old issues of the Congregationalist don't look that promising. For one thing, many of the volumes, especially those from the late 1800s, are very tattered and fragile. They are also huge and unwieldy, hardly inviting casual browsing. Inside are long articles in tiny print about the topics of the day: missionaries, ordinations, church meetings, and of course all of the unseemly things being done by Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.
I have to confess that I love reading through those old pages. Sometimes the advertisements are so wonderful that you have to stop and enjoy them. Take for example, the virtues of "Puritana" vitamin syrup or "Greene's Nervura Blood and Nerve Remedy, the Grandest of Medicines and the Surest of Cures," as testified by Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland from a church somewhere in "Talmadge".
Some of us in fact might take comfort in the fact that a hundred years ago the waif-like supermodel was deemed unsightly: the headline in an advertisement from 1906 was "Are You Too Thin?" For a paltry fee, Miss Susanna Cocroft would send you an elixir guaranteed to make you "round, plump, wholesome, rested and attractive." Testimonials included one woman ecstatic over gaining 25 pounds. 
Others testified to other apparent side-benefits, including more regular bowels and healthful digestion.
Who was Miss Cocroft? Apparently she was not a doctor or a dietitian: the advertisement simply tells us that "as president of Physical Culture Extension work in America, Miss Cocroft needs no further introduction." Hmmm.
Of course Miss Cocroft also advertised a potion that would "Reduce Flesh" by "natural means and in a dignified manner." All this required was a series of simple exercises practiced in the privacy of one's own room, alongside a "rational diet". In the end it's always so simple. Her descendants Jenny Craig and Dr. Atkins would hardly improve on that tried and true formula.
-Peggy
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