Carter's Little Pills

Carter's trademark was a black crow. By 1880 the business was incorporated as Carter Products. The pills were touted to cure headaches, constipation, dyspepsia, and biliousness. In the late 19th century, they were marketed in the UK by American businessman John Morgan Richards. Carter's Little Liver Pills predated the other available forms of bisacodyl and was a very popular and heavily advertised patent medicine up until the 1960s, spawning a common saying (with variants) in the first half of the 20th century.