HeraclesApotheosis2.0100

Toché, Charles (1851-1916), illustrator; Charles Verneau, printer. Hebe and Heracles celebrate eternal life in a broadside advert for Elixir Godineau, 1890. 161 x 120 cm. Poster archived at the Bibliotheque nationale du France, 73873/pf0002141146.

Image at right is derived from the BnF-Gallica website: https://bibliotheques-specialisees.paris.fr/ark:/73873/pf0002141146

Marriage to Hebe is Heracles' eternal reward, as granted by Olympus. She holds the chalice which presumably holds a draught of Godineau's Elixir.

The elixir — a potion presumably containing something or other suspended in alcohol — was touted in contemporary publications to be "This Century's Great Discovery" even to cure all ills, indeed with "the possibility of thus invigorating and protacting human life ... in a form convenient of conveyance, but above all, within the reach of every one." (Extension of Life, preface).

The booklet (1895) itself is a remarkable document: "Booklet advertising Elixir Godineau, "this century's great discovery". It is suggested as a cure for such diseases as anaemia, dysentery, diarrhoea, rhumatism, cancer of the stomach, scurvy, peritonitis, vertigo, scrofula, ulcers, congestion and hemorrhage of the brain, tuberculosis meningites, influenza, dyspepsia, lymphatism, rachitis, hysteria, general paralysis, syphilis, chorea, blennorrhea, fever, softening of the brain, nephritis, spinal disease, spermatorrhoea, impotence, hemorrhage and chlorosis. — See it on Internet Archive in its full 62 pages.