Wanted: antique Fleet enema package

When I first became a teenager, I went shopping at my local drugstore. There was an entire shelf of Fleet enema packages. The package showed a photograph of a nurse. she had dark hair and a very business-like expression on her face. She wore a nursing cap (you don't see those anymore) and she was holding a Fleet enema in her hand.

I wanted that woman to give me an enema more than anything in the whole world. Social values about the portrayal of actual people on packages have changed. You will never see an actual woman on an enema package. Modern packages contain a line drawing like a cartoon.

The Fleet company used to have a historian on their staff who could answer these kinds of questions. The company has been bought out and nobody there has any knowledge of the history of the company.

Does anyone have an antique Fleet enema package?

Earliest thing I have is an ad from the 1960s

I remember seeing a similar image in fleet ads in old nursing magazines that my mother got in the mail.

@lisak

You won't find ads for Fleets much before 1960 as they were introduced to the market in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The earliest ones came in a plastic bottle with a screw-on cap and the rectal nozzle had to be screwed on after the cap was removed before use.

Fleet Enema has supposedly been on the consumer market since 1954.

Don't know if it was widely used until the early 1960s

@LisaK

OK, that fits. I first encountered one about 1958 or 1959. In 1956 it was a full Rexall Roxbury Fountain and Ivory soap.

LisaK and Sean have confirmed an experience of my childhood with their 50s time frame of Fleets introduction. My mother used to have a nurse friend that she brought in to give me an enema on occasion. One time she brought what she called a “special enema” that was supposed to be easier to use and take than using the bag and soapy water. It was a little squeeze bottle kind of thing that when she first put it in me I can remember thinking this is much easier with no full belly of soapy water to hold her mandatory 5-10 minutes. Well I was quite wrong since she made me hold it for 10 minutes and when she said I could go my guts were churning horribly and my urge to expel was multiples of the soapy mix she usually gave me. Then when I did expel it burned horribly and I felt like I was going to be rocketed off the toilet as I pushed and pushed. I never ever wanted one of those things again. I wonder if the earlier Fleets formulation was either stronger or some other mixture of ingredients than is currently in them or whether, since I was only a grade school kid that had some constipation problems, that it reacted more potently? I'm still not a fan of Fleets enemas, but have had them given me or have had to use them prior to some exams when in a clinical setting.

I can remember thinking this is much easier with no full belly of soapy water to hold her mandatory 5-10 minutes. Well I was quite wrong since she made me hold it for 10 minutes and when she said I could go my guts were churning horribly

My wife would rather have a fleet because I think she thinks it is less embarrassing than having all the apparatus that goes with a bag enema.

In my experience they are much crampier and make you push relentlessly. That is a good way to get hemmoroids.

Used them many times , they work

I saw a full page ad in a 1957 parenting magazine ad for fleet “when the doctor recommends an enema” showing the fleet package snd then a cartoon type drawing of an enemabag with hose and nozzle chasing s naked child. Black and white print

Https://www.ebay.com/itm/183804069079?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=183804069079&targetid=1263104806246&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9007581&poi=&campaignid=13822859434&mkgroupid=124093145466&rlsatarget=pla-1263104806246&abcId=9300603&merchantid=109010785&gclid=CjwKCAjw87SHBhBiEiwAukSeUTGDm5-fVYWhRyuuu6_RD72tMfQ8bB3PkQTxeTT9b_T-PSe4RdJ3kRoCE40QAvD_BwE

This is a new one I had not heard before. Apparently Fleet made a small dose enema with Theophylline Monoethanolaminewhich was used to treat asthma. See it on e-Bay at: https://www.ebay.com/itm/303635840856?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=303635840856&targetid=1264870805664&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9007581&poi=&campaignid=13822590906&mkgroupid=124025337789&rlsatarget=pla-1264870805664&abcId=9300603&merchantid=115295884&gclid=CjwKCAjw87SHBhBiEiwAukSeUeWwhu1fVwJdJRrCy192fFTVgoAtyQxFC9gCz1022ERdIPWlIyG7OhoCa6UQAvD_BwE