Doctor M.A. Simmons first practiced medicine in Georgia, where he brewed up Simmons Liver Medicine (curing costiveness, lowness of spirits, colic, foul breath, dyspepsia, etc.) and drove through the countryside with a five-gallon keg of it, dispensing however much anyone wanted to buy. He moved to Mississippi, first living in Holly Springs, but located in Iuka when the proprietary medicine tax became effective in 1862. His private die stamp was not issued until December of 1875. It was last delivered in December of 1879. 356,683 were printed on silk and watermarked papers, mostly on silk paper. The copy above is on silk paper.

Simmons moved to Saint Louis in 1878 and sold the business to his son in 1879. The Saint Louis stamps were issued from January of 1879 (overlapping the Iuka stamps??) until November 25, 1881. All were printed on watermarked paper.

A card proof of the Iuka stamp.

A plate proof of the Saint Louis stamp on India paper sunk on card. From the Morton Dean Joyce collection.

An advertisement from a wholesale catalog circa the early 1880's.

This combination song, fortune, dream and cook book was issued in the very early twentieth century, as it contains figures from the 1900 census.