A “paw-city” of truth? Munyan’s Laboratories, makers of “medicinal paw paw products” advertised the following during the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak: “Thousands of lives have been saved from the prevailing epidemic of influenza by the prompt use, upon the first indications of watery eyes or nose, sneezing, coughing, headache, aching bones, tired feeling, or sore throat, of MUNYAN’s Paw Paw Laxatives taken each evening, and Cold Remedy and Grippe Remedy taken alternate hours throughout the day.” Read more about the deadly Spanish flu pandemic a century ago in On the Shore (1917-1925), a tale of conflict between generations in a Lower East Side immigrant family (see NOVELS).
