I guess alcohol comes from vegetables

Wow. Let me just quote some of the text of this ad for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound:

"Nature may endow you with breathtaking beauty, a lovely curvaceous figure. She may bestow gifts on you that make you a brilliant actress, a leader in your class at college, sought after at dances, or a charming wife and mother.

"Yes, Nature may do all this. But even so--you may find your face mockingly slapped if you suffer these distressing symptoms which so many unfortunate girls and women do."

The "distressing symptoms," if you care to know, are pain, nervous distress, feeling weak, restless, "so cranky and irritable that you almost turn into a 'she-devil'" on some days, nervous tension, irritability, and "those tired-out, mean, 'pick-on-everyone' feelings."

Well.

In the good old days, the compound was compounded with 18% alcohol, which if, as the ad suggests, was "taken regularly throughout the month" undoubtedly did help "build up resistance against such distress."

Nowadays, the formula's a bit more new-agey. The current incarnation of her business empire is eager to assure us that Lydia was a feminist and female emancipator, but boy, it's hard to imagine this ad in the pages of Ms.