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diff --git a/old/30162.txt b/old/30162.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..baeb2f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30162.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2424 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old English Patent Medicines in America, by +George B. Griffenhagen and James Harvey Young + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Old English Patent Medicines in America + +Author: George B. Griffenhagen + James Harvey Young + +Release Date: October 2, 2009 [EBook #30162] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +CONTRIBUTIONS FROM +THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY: + +PAPER 10 + + + + +OLD ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES IN AMERICA + + + +_George B. Griffenhagen_ and +_James Harvey Young_ + + + + +ORIGINS OF ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES 156 + +ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES COME TO AMERICA 162 + +COMPLEX FORMULAS AND DISTINCTIVE PACKAGES 166 + +SOURCE OF SUPPLY SEVERED 168 + +PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY FORMULARY 174 + +ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES GO WEST 176 + +THE PATENT MEDICINES IN THE 20TH CENTURY 179 + + + + +OLD ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES IN AMERICA + +_By George B. Griffenhagen and James Harvey Young_ + + +_Bateman's Pectoral Drops, Godfrey's Cordial, Turlington's Balsam of +Life, Hooper's Female Pills, and a half-dozen other similar nostrums +originated in England, mostly during the first half of the 18th +century. Advertised with extravagant claims, their use soon spread to +the American Colonies._ + +_To the busy settler, with little time and small means, these +ready-made and comparatively inexpensive "remedies" appealed as a +solution to problems of medical and pharmaceutical aid. Their +popularity brought forth a host of American imitations and made an +impression not soon forgotten or discarded._ + +THE AUTHORS: _George B. Griffenhagen, formerly curator of medical +sciences in the Smithsonian Institution's U.S. National Museum, is now +Director of Communications for the American Pharmaceutical Association. +James Harvey Young is professor of history at Emory University. Some of +the material cited in the paper was found by him while he held a +fellowship from the Fund for the Advancement of Education, in 1954-55, +and grants-in-aid from the Social Science Research Council and Emory +University, in 1956-57._ + + + + +In 1824 there issued from the press in Philadelphia a 12-page pamphlet +bearing the title, _Formulae for the preparation of eight patent +medicines, adopted by the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy_. The +College was the first professional pharmaceutical organization +established in America, having been founded in 1821, and this small +publication was its first venture of any general importance. Viewed +from the perspective of the mid-20th century, it may seem strange if +not shocking that the maiden effort of such a college should be +publicizing formulas for nostrums. Adding to the novelty is the fact +that all eight of these patent medicines, with which the Philadelphians +concerned themselves half a century after American independence, were +of English origin. + +Hooper's Female Pills, Anderson's Scots Pills, Bateman's Pectoral +Drops, Godfrey's Cordial, Dalby's Carminative, Turlington's Balsam of +Life, Steer's Opodeldoc, British Oil--in this order do the names appear +in the Philadelphia pamphlet--all were products of British therapeutic +ingenuity. Across the Atlantic Ocean and on American soil these eight +and other old English patent medicines, as of the year when the 12-page +pamphlet was printed, had both a past and a future. + + +Origin of English Patent Medicines + +When the Philadelphia pharmacists began their study, the eight English +patent medicines were from half a century to two centuries old.[1] The +most ancient was Anderson's Scots Pills, a product of the 1630's, and +the most recent was probably Dalby's Carminative, which appeared upon +the scene in the 1780's. Some aspects of the origin and development of +these and similar English proprietaries have been treated, but a more +thorough search of the sources and a more integrated and interpretive +recounting of the story would be a worthy undertaking. Here merely an +introduction can be given to the cast of characters prior to their +entrances upon the American stage. + + [1] Unless otherwise indicated, the early English history of + these patent medicines has been obtained from the following + sources: "Proprietaries of other days," _Chemist and Druggist_, + June 25, 1927, vol. 106, pp. 831-840; C. J. S. Thompson, _The + mystery and art of the apothecary_, London, 1929; C. J. S. + Thompson, _Quacks of old London_, London, 1928; and A. C. + Wootton, _Chronicles of pharmacy_, London, 1910, 2 vols. + +The inventor of Anderson's Scots Pills was fittingly enough a Scot +named Patrick Anderson, who claimed to be physician to King Charles I. +In one of his books, published in 1635, Anderson extolled in Latin the +merits of the Grana Angelica, a pill the formula for which he said he +had learned in Venice. Before he died, Anderson imparted the secret to +his daughter Katherine, and in 1686 she in turn conveyed the secret to +an Edinburgh physician named Thomas Weir. The next year Weir persuaded +James II to grant him letters patent for the pills. Whether he did +this to protect himself against competition that already had begun, +or whether the patenting gave a cue to those always ready to cut +themselves in on a good thing, cannot be said for sure. The last years +of the 17th century, at any rate, saw the commencement of a spirited +rivalry among various makers of Anderson's Scots Pills that was long to +continue. One of them was Mrs. Isabella Inglish, an enterprising woman +who sealed her pill boxes in black wax bearing a lion rampant, three +mallets argent, and the bust of Dr. Anderson. Another was a man named +Gray who sealed his boxes in red wax with his coat of arms and a motto +strangely chosen for a medicine, "Remember you must die." + +[Illustration: Figure 1.--THE PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY in 1824 +set forth in this pamphlet formulas for eight old English patent +medicines. (_Courtesy, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, +Philadelphia, Pennsylvania._)] + +Competition already had begun when Godfrey's Cordial appeared in the +record in a London newspaper advertisement during December 1721. John +Fisher of Hertfordshire, "Physician and Chymist," claimed to have +gotten the true formula from its originator, the late Dr. Thomas +Godfrey of the same county. But there is an alternate explanation. +Perhaps the Cordial had its origin in the apothecary shop established +about 1660 by Ambroise (Hanckowitz) Godfrey in Southampton Street, +London.[2] According to a handbill issued during the late 17th century, +Ambroise Godfrey prepared "Good Cordials as Royal English Drops." + + [2] "How the patent medicine industry came into its own," + _American Druggist_, October 1933, vol. 88, pp. 84-87, 232, 234, + 236, 238. + +[Illustration: Figure 2.--ANTHONY DAFFY EXTOLLED THE VIRTUES OF HIS +ELIXIR SALUTIS in this pamphlet, published in London in 1673. +(_Courtesy, British Museum._)] + +With respect to his rivals, the 18th-century Hertfordshire vendor of +the Cordial warned in the _Weekly Journal_ (London), December 23, 1721: +"I do advise all Persons, for their own Safety, not to meddle with the +said Cordial prepared by illiterate and ignorant Persons, as Bakers, +Malsters, [sic] and Goldsmiths, that shall pretend to make it, it being +beyond their reach; so that by their Covetousness and Pretensions, many +Men, Women, and especially Infants, may fall as Victims, whose Slain +may exceed Herod's Cruelty...." + +In 1726 King George I granted a patent for the making and selling of +Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops. The patent was given not to a doctor, but +to a business man named Benjamin Okell. In the words of the patent,[3] +Okell is lauded for having "found out and brought to Perfection, a new +Chymicall Preparacion and Medicine..., working chiefly by Moderate +Sweat and Urine, exceeding all other Medicines yet found out for the +Rheumatism, which is highly useful under the Afflictions of the Stone, +Gravell, Pains, Agues, and Hysterias...." What the chemicals +constituting his remedy were, the patentee did not vouchsafe to reveal. + + [3] Benjamin Okell, "Pectoral drops for rheumatism, gravel, + etc.," British patent 483, March 31, 1726. + +The practice of patenting had begun in royal prerogative. Long +accustomed to granting monopoly privileges for the development of new +industries, the discovery of new lands, and the enrichment of court +favorites, various monarchs in 17th-century Europe had given letters +patent to proprietors of medical remedies which had gained popular +acclaim. In France and the German States, this practice continued well +through the 18th century. In England, where representative government +had progressed at the expense of the personal prerogative of the +sovereign, Parliament passed a law in 1624 aimed at curbing arbitrary +actions like those of James I and Charles I. The statute declared all +monopolies void except those extended to the first inventor of a new +process of manufacture. To such pioneers the king could grant his +letters patent bestowing monopoly privileges for a period of 14 years. +That the machinery set up by this law did not completely curb the +independence of English sovereigns in the medical realm is indicated by +the favor extended Dr. Weir, who successfully sought from James II a +privileged position for Anderson's Scots Pills. This kingly grant is +not included in the regular list, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 +brought an end to such an exercise of royal power without consent of +Parliament. A list of patents in the medical field later published by +the Commissioners of Patents[4] includes only six issued during the +17th century, four for baths and devices, one for an improved method of +preparing alum, and one for making epsom salts. The first patent for a +compound medicine was granted in 1711, and only two other proprietors +preceded Benjamin Okell in seeking this particular legal form of +protection and promotion. + +As early as 1721, Bateman's Pectoral Drops were being regularly +advertised in the _London Mercury_. The advertisements announced: "Dr. +Bateman's Pectoral DROPS published at the Request of several Persons of +Distinction from both Universities...." The Drops, priced at "1 s. a +Bottle," were "Sold Wholesale and Retail at the Printing-house and +Picture Warehouse in Bow Churchyard," and likewise "in most Cities and +celebrated Towns in Great Britain." "Each Bottle Seal'd with the Boar's +Head." So stated the advertisement, which itself contained a crude cut +of this Boar's Head seal.[5] Elsewhere in this issue of the _Mercury_, +we learn that John Cluer, printer, was the proprietor of the Bow +Churchyard Warehouse. This same John Cluer, along with William Dicey +and Robert Raikes, were named in the 1726 patent as "the Persons +concerned with the said Inventor," Benjamin Okell, who, with him, +should "enjoy the sole Benefit of the said Medicine." It was this +partnership which was to find the field of nostrum promotion especially +congenial and which was to play an important transatlantic role. Soon +after securing their patent, the proprietors undertook to inform their +countrymen about the remedy by issuing _A short treatise of the virtues +of Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops_.[6] + + [4] British Patent Office, _Patents for inventions: abridgements + of specifications relating to medicine, surgery, and dentistry, + 1620-1866_, London, 1872. + + [5] _London Mercury_, London, August 19-26, 1721. + + [6] _A short treatise of the virtues of Dr. Bateman's Pectoral + Drops_, New York, 1731. A 36-page pamphlet preserved in the + Library of the New York Academy of Medicine. This is an American + reprint of an English original, date unknown. + +It was the 18th century, and the essay was in fashion. The proprietors +prepared a didactic introduction to their treatise, phrased in long and +flowery sentences, in which modesty was not the governing tone. The +arguments ran like this: that the "Universal Good of Mankind" should be +the aim of "every private member"; that nothing is so conducive to this +general welfare as "HEALTH"; that no hazards to health are more direful +than diseases such as "the Gout; the Rheumatism; the Stone; the +Jaundice," etc., etc.; that countless men and women have succumbed to +such afflictions either because they received no treatment or suffered +wrong treatment at "the Hands of the Learned"; that no medicine is so +sure a cure as that inexpensive remedy discovered as a result of great +"Piety, Learning and Industry" by one "inspir'd with the Love of his +Country, and the Good of Mankind," to wit. "Dr. BATEMAN'S Pectoral +Drops." + +Then followed seven chapters treating the multitude of illnesses for +which the Drops were a specific. Finally, the pamphlet cited "some few, +out of the many thousands of Certificates of Cures effected by these +DROPS...." Even so early was the testimonial deemed a powerful +persuader. + +No more could Okell, Cluer, Dicey, and Raikes escape competition than +could the proprietors of other successful nostrums. In 1755 they went +to court and won a suit for the infringement of their patent, but the +damages amounted to only a shilling. Even after the patent expired, the +tide of publicity flowed on.[7] + + [7] A broadside, issued in London, _ca._ 1750, advertising "Dr. + Bateman's Drops," is preserved in the Warshaw Collection of + Business Americana, New York. Later reprints of this same + broadside are preserved in the private collection of Samuel Aker, + Albany, New York, and in the Smithsonian Institution. + +Competition was also lively in the 1740's among some half a dozen +proprietors marketing a form of crude petroleum under the name of +British Oil. Early in the decade Michael and Thomas Betton were granted +a patent for "An Oyl extracted from a Flinty Rock for the Cure of +Rheumatick and Scorbutick and other Cases." The source of the oil, +according to their specifications, was rock lying just above the coal +in mines, and this rock was pulverized and heated in a furnace to +extract all the precious healing oil.[8] This Betton patent aroused one +of their rivals, Edmund Darby & Co. of Coalbrook-Dale in Shropshire. +Darby asserted that it was presumptuous of the Bettons to call their +British oyl a new invention.[9] For over a century Darby and his +predecessors had been marketing this self-same product, and it had +proved to be "the one and only unrivall'd and most efficacious Remedy +ever yet discovered, against the whole force of Diseases and Accidents +that await Mankind...." For the Bettons to appropriate the process and +patent it--and even to claim in their advertising cures which really +had been wrought by the Darby product--was scandalous. Worse than that, +said Darby, it was illegal, for in 1693 William III had granted a +patent to "Martin Eele and two others at his Nomination for making the +same Sort of Oyl from the same Sort of Materials." Evidence to +substantiate his belief in the Betton perfidy was presented by Darby to +George II, who had the matter duly investigated.[10] Being persuaded +that Darby was right, the king and his councillors, in 1745, vacated +the Betton patent. This victory seems not to have boomed the Darby +interests, and this defeat seems not to have ruined the Bettons. During +the succeeding century, the Betton patent was published and republished +in advertising, just as if it had never fallen afoul the law. From +their battles with the Oil from Coalbrook-Dale and other British Oils +marketed by other proprietors, the Bettons emerged triumphant. In the +years to come, patent or no, the Bettons British Oil was to dominate +the field. + + [8] Michael and Thomas Betton, "Oil for the cure of rheumatic and + scorbutic affections," British patent 587, August 14, 1742. + + [9] Edmund Darby & Co., _Directions for taking inwardly and using + outwardly the company's true genuine and original British Oil; + prepared by Edmund Darby & Co. at Coalbrook-Dale, Shropshire_, + ca. 1745. An 8-page pamphlet preserved in the Library of the + College of Physicians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. + + [10] _London Gazette_, London, March 1, 1745. + +The year after the Bettons had secured their patent, another was +granted to John Hooper of Reading for the manufacture of "Female Pills" +bearing his name.[11] Hooper was an apothecary, a man-midwife, and a +shrewd fellow. This was the period in which the British Government was +increasing its efforts to require the patentee to furnish precise +specifications with his application.[12] When Hooper was called upon to +tell what was in his pills and how they were made, he replied by +asserting that they were composed "Of the best purging stomatick and +anti-hysterick ingredients," which were formed into pills the size of a +small pea. This satisfied the royal agents and Hooper went on about his +business. In an advertisement of the same year, he was able to cite as +a witness to his patent the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[13] + + [11] John Hooper, "Pills," British patent 592, July 21, 1743. + + [12] E. Burke Inlow, _The patent grant_, Baltimore, 1950, p. 33. + + [13] _Daily Advertiser_, London, September 23, 1743. + +Much less taciturn than Hooper about the composition of his nostrum was +Robert Turlington, who secured a patent in 1744 for "A specifick +balsam, called the balsam of life."[14] The Balsam contained no less +than 27 ingredients, and in his patent specifications Turlington +asserted that it would cure kidney and bladder stones, cholic, and +inward weakness. He shortly issued a 46-page pamphlet in which he +greatly expanded the list.[15] In this appeal to 18th-century +sensibilities, Turlington asserted that the "Author of Nature" has +provided "a Remedy for every Malady." To find them, "Men of Learning +and Genius" have "ransack'd" the "Animal, Mineral and Vegetable World." +His own search had led Turlington to the Balsam, "a perfect Friend to +Nature, which it strengthens and corroborates when weak and declining, +vivifies and enlivens the Spirits, mixes with the Juices and Fluids of +the Body and gently infuses its kindly Influence into those Parts that +are most in Disorder." + + [14] Robert Turlington, "A Specifick balsam, called the balsam of + life," British patent 596, January 18, 1744. + + [15] Robert Turlington, _Turlington's Balsam of Life_, ca. 1747. + A 46-page pamphlet preserved in the Folger Shakespeare Library, + Washington, D.C. + +[Illustration: Figure 3.--LABEL FOR STOUGHTON'S ELIXIR as manufactured +by Dr. Jos. Frye of Salem, Massachusetts. (_Courtesy, Essex Institute, +Salem, Massachusetts._)] + +Testimonials from those who had felt the kindly influence took up most +of the space in Turlington's pamphlet. In these grateful +acknowledgments to the potency of the patent medicine, the list of +illnesses cured stretched far beyond the handful named in the patent +specifications. Just as for Bateman's Pectoral Drops and the Darby +brand of British Oil, workers of many occupations solemnly swore that +they had received benefit. Most of them were humble people--a porter, a +carpenter, the wife of a gardener, a blanket-weaver, a gunner's mate, a +butcher, a hostler, a bodice-maker. Some bore a status of greater +distinction: there were a "Mathematical Instrument-Maker" and the +doorkeeper of the East India Company. All were jubilant at their +restored good health. + +The Balsam's well-nigh sovereign power could not protect it from one +ailment of the times, competition. Various preparations of similar +composition, like Friar's Balsam, already were on the market, but +before long even the Turlington name was trespassed upon, and the +inventor's niece was forced to advertise that she alone had the true +formula and that any person who took a dose of the spurious imitations +being offered did so at great hazard to his life. + +A quarter of a century after the patenting of the Balsam, there +appeared for sale to British ailing a remedy called Dr. Steer's +Celebrated Opodeldoc. Dr. Steer is a shadowy rider of a vigorous +steed, for although the doctor has left but a faint personal impact +upon the historical record, Opodeldoc has pranced through medical +history since the time of Paracelsus. This 16th-century continental +chemist-physician, who introduced many mineral remedies into the +materia medica, had coined the word "opodeldoc" to apply to various +medical plasters. In the two ensuing centuries the meaning had +changed, and the _Pharmacopoeia Edinburgensis_ of 1722 employed the +term to designate soap liniment. It is presumed that Dr. Steer +appropriated the Edinburgh formula, added ammonia, and marketed his +proprietary version. In 1780, a London paper carried an advertisement +listing the difficulties for which the Opodeldoc was a "speedy and +certain cure." These included bruises, sprains, burns, cuts, +chillblains, and headaches. Furthermore, the remedy had been "found +of infinite Use in hot Climates for the Bite of venomous +Insects."[16] Dr. Steer seems not to have secured a patent for his +slightly modified version of an official preparation. He died in +1781, but Opodeldoc, indeed Steer's Opodeldoc, went marching on.[17] + + [16] _Daily Advertiser_, London, February 18, 1780. + + [17] Broadsides, _ca._ 1810-1822, advertising "Steer's Chemical + Opodeldoc, for bruises, sprains, rheumatism, etc., etc.," are + preserved in the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, + Massachusetts; the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine; + and the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, New York. + +About the same time that Dr. Steer began advertising, newspaper +promotion was launched in behalf of another remedy, called Dalby's +Carminative. The inventor, J. Dalby, was a London apothecary, and his +unpatented concoction was designed to cure "Disorders of the Bowels." +One early advertisement[18] added details: "This Medicine, which is +founded on just Medical Principles, has been long established as a most +safe and effectual Remedy, generally affording immediate Relief in the +Wind, Cholocks [_sic_], Convulsions, Purgings, and all those fatal +Disorders in the Bowels of Infants, which carry off so great a number +under the age of 2 years. It is also equally efficacious in gouty Pains +in the Intestines, in Fluxes, and in the cholicky Complaints of grown +Persons, so usual at this Season of the Year." Dalby, like Steer, +failed long to survive the appearance of his medicine on the market. + + [18] _Daily Advertiser_, London, January 4, 1781. + +Such were the origins of the eight remedies which the Philadelphia +pharmacists were to take account of in 1824. Besides these eight, two +other patent medicines, both elixirs, were destined for roles of such +special interest that a brief look at their English background is +warranted. + +One of them, Daffy's Elixir, was the invention of a clergyman, Rev. +Thomas Daffy soon after 1650. Daffy had his troubles during that +troubled century, losing a pastorate because he offended a powerful +Countess. When the rector first sought to minister unto men's bodies as +well as to their souls is not known. According to a pamphlet issued in +1673, after the Rev. Daffy had passed from the scene, the formula had +been "found out by the Providence of the Almighty." By this time a +London kinsman of the inventor, named Anthony Daffy, was vending the +remedy. The full name of the medicine, according to the pamphlet's +title, was "Elixir Salutis: The Choice Drink of Health, or +Health-Bringing Drink," and among the ailments for which it was +effective were gout, the stone, colic, "ptissick," scurvy, dropsy, +rickets, consumption, and "languishing and melancholly." + +The Elixir Salutis proved immensely popular. It was too much to expect +that Anthony should hold the field uncontested; in the 1673 pamphlet +one false fabricator was called by name, and in 1680 Anthony advertised +to warn against "diverse Persons" who were not only counterfeiting the +medicine but spreading the malicious rumor that Anthony was dead. Early +in the new century, Catherine, the daughter of the original Rev. Daffy, +insisted that she as well as her cousin Anthony had received the +valuable formula. But it was Anthony's line that was to prove the more +persistent. In 1743, one Susannah Daffy advertised the "Original and +Famous Elixir," asserting that she had a brother Anthony who also knew +the secret.[19] This Anthony died in 1750 and willed the formula to his +niece. But there were others outside the family who long had been +making and selling the medicine. For example, the Bow Churchyard +Warehouse advertised Daffy's Elixir in the _London Mercury_ during +1721. Without hiding the fact that others were also compounding this +"safe and pleasant Cordial ... well-known throughout England, where it +has been in great Use these 50 Years," the advertisement concluded: +"Those who make tryalof That sold at this [Bow Churchyard] Warehouse +will never buy anywhere else."[20] + + [19] _Ibid._, September 7, 1743. + + [20] _London Mercury_, London, August 19-26, 1721. + +Although once lauded by a physician to King Charles II, Daffy's Elixir +was never patented. The Elixir invented by Richard Stoughton was, in +1712, the second compound medicine to be granted a patent in +England.[21] Stoughton was an apothecary who had a shop at the Sign of +the Unicorn in Southwark, Surrey. It was evidently competition, the +constant bane of the medicine proprietor's life, that drove him to seek +governmental protection. In his specifications he asserted that he had +been making his medical mixture for over twenty years. Stoughton was +less precise about his formula; indeed, he gave none, but was generous +in indicating the remedy's name: "Stoughton's Elixir Magnum Stomachii, +or the Great Cordial Elixir, otherwise called the Stomatick Tincture or +Bitter Drops." In a handbill, the apothecary did tip his hand to the +extent of asserting that his Elixir contained 22 ingredients, but added +that nobody but himself knew what they were. The dosage was generous, +50 to 60 drops "in a glass of Spring water, Beer, Ale, Mum, Canary, +White wine, with or without sugar, and a dram of brandy as often as you +please." This, it was said, would cure any stomach ailment +whatever.[22] + + [21] Richard Stoughton, "Restorative cordial and medicine," + British patent 390, 1712. + + [22] From a broadside, _ca._ 1750, advertising "Dr. Stoughton's + Elixir Magnum Stomachum," preserved in the American Antiquarian + Society, Worcester, Mass. + +The inventor died in 1726, and his passing precipitated a perfect fury +of competitive advertising. As in the case of Daffy's, there was a +family feud. A son of Stoughton and the widow of another son argued +vituperously in print, each claiming sole possession of Richard's +complicated secret, and each terming the other a scoundrel. The +daughter-in-law accused the son of financial chicanery, and the son +condemned the daughter-in-law for having run through two husbands and +for desperately wanting a third. In the midst of this running battle, a +third party entered the lists as maker of the Elixir. She was no +Stoughton--though a widow--and her quaint claim for the public's +consideration lay in this, that her late husband had infringed +Stoughton's patent until restrained by the Lord Chancellor. + +These ten medicines--Stoughton's and Daffy's Elixirs and the eight +which the Philadelphia pharmacists were later to select--were by no +means the only packaged remedies available to the 18th-century +Englishman who resorted to self-dosage for his ills. Between 1711, when +the first patent was granted for a compound medicine, and 1776, some 75 +items were patented in the medical field.[23] And, along with Godfrey's +Cordial and Daffy's Elixir, there were scores of other remedies for +which no patents had been given. A list of nostrums published in _The +Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1748 totaled 202, and it was admittedly +incomplete.[24] The proprietor with a patent might do his utmost to +keep this badge of governmental sanction before the public, but the +distinction was not great enough in such a crowded field to make things +clear. The casual buyer could not keep track of which electuary had +been granted a patent and which lozenge had not. They were all bottles +and boxes upon the shelf. In use they served the same purpose. One term +arose in common speech to apply to both, and it was "patent medicine." + + [23] British Patent Office, _op. cit._ (see footnote 4). + + [24] Poplicola, "Pharmacopoeia empirica or the list of nostrums + and empirics," _The Gentleman's Magazine_, 1748, vol. 18, pp. + 346-350. + + +English Patent Medicines Come to America + +When the first English packaged medicine, patented or unpatented, came +to the New World, cannot be told. Some 17th-century prospective +colonist, setting forth to face the hazards of life in Jamestown or +Baltimore or Boston, must have packed a box of Anderson's Scots Pills +or a bottle of Daffy's Elixir to bring along, but no record to +substantiate such an incident has been encountered. It would seem that +the use of English packaged remedies in America was most infrequent +before 1700. Samuel Lee, answering questions posed from England in 1690 +about the status of medicine and pharmacy in Massachusetts, mentions no +patent medicines.[25] Neither does the 1698 account book of the Salem +apothecary, Bartholomew Brown.[26] + + [25] George L. Kittredge, "Letters to Samuel Lee and Samuel + Sewall relating to New England and the Indians," _Colonial + Society of Massachusetts, Transactions_, 1913, vol. 14, pp. + 142-186. + + [26] Bartholomew Brown, Apothecary day book, Salem [1698]; + manuscript original preserved in the Library of the Essex + Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. + +[Illustration: Figure 4.--PATRICK ANDERSON, M.D., from a box of +Anderson's Scots Pills. From Wootton's _Chronicles of pharmacy_, +London, 1910. (_Smithsonian photo 44286-C._)] + +In the _Boston News-Letter_ for October 4, 1708, Nicholas Boone, at the +Sign of the Bible, near the corner, of School-House-Lane, advertised +for sale: "DAFFY'S Elixir Salutis, very good, at four shillings and +sixpence _per_ half pint Bottle." This may well be the first printed +reference in America to an English patent medicine, and it certainly is +the first newspaper advertisement for a nostrum. Preceding the +_News-Letter_ in colonial America, there had been only one paper, the +_Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic_.[27] This journal had +lasted but a single issue. Then its printer had returned to England, +where he took up the career of a patent medicine promoter, vending "the +only Angelical Pills against all Vapours, Hysterick Fits." The +_News-Letter_ had begun with the issue of April 27, 1704, about 4 years +before Boone's advertisement for Daffy's remedy made its appearance, +but during that time, only one advertisement for anything at all in the +medical field had appeared, and that was for a home-remedy book, _The +English physician_, by Nicholas Culpeper, Doctor of Physick.[28] This +volume was also for sale at Boone's shop. + + [27] Frank L. Mott, _American journalism_, New York, 1941, pp. + 9-10. + + [28] _Boston News-Letter_, Boston, February 9, 1708. + +Patent-medicine advertising in the _News-Letter_ prior to 1750 was +infrequent. Apothecary Zabdiel Boylston, who a decade later was to earn +a role of esteem in medical history by introducing the inoculation for +smallpox, announced in 1711 that he would sell "the true Lockyers +Pills."[29] This was an unpatented remedy first concocted half a +century earlier by a "licensed physitian" in London. The next year +Boylston repeated this appeal,[30] and in the same advertisement listed +other wares of the same type. He had two varieties, Golden and Plain, +of the Spirit of Scurvy-Grass; he had "The Bitter Stomach Drops," worm +potions for children; and a wonderful multipurpose nostrum, "the Royal +Honey Water, an Excellent Perfume, good against Deafness, and to Make +Hair grow...." The antecedents of this regal liquid are unknown. +Boylston also announced for sale "The Best [Daffy's] Elixir Salutis in +Bottles, or by the Ounce." This is a provocative listing. It may mean +merely that the apothecary would break a bottle to sell a dose of the +Elixir, which was often the custom. But it also may suggest that +Boylston was making the Elixir himself, or was having it prepared by a +journeyman. This latter interpretation would place Boylston well at the +head of a long parade of American imitators of the old English patent +medicines. + + [29] _Ibid._, March 12, 1711. + + [30] _Ibid._, March 24, 1712. + +Other such shipments of the packaged English remedies may have come to +New England on the latest ships from London during the next several +decades, but they got scant play in the advertising columns of the +small 4-page _Boston News-Letter_. Another reference to "Doctor Anthony +Daffey's Original Elixer Salutis" occurs in 1720.[31] Ten years later, +Stoughton's Drops were announced for sale "by Public Vendue," along +with feather beds, looking glasses, and leather breeches.[32] Nearly a +decade more was to pass before Bateman's Pectoral Drops showed up in +the midst of another general list, including cheese, and shoes, and +stays.[33] Not until 1748 did an advertisement appear in which several +of the old English nostrums rubbed shoulders with each other.[34] Then +Silvester Gardiner, at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar, asserted +that "by appointment of the Patentee" he was enabled to sell "Genuine +British Oyl, _Bateman's_ Pectoral Drops, and _Hooper's_ Female Pills, +and the True _Lockyer's_ Pills." + + [31] _Ibid._, November 14, 1720. + + [32] _Ibid._, March 12, 1730. + + [33] _Ibid._, January 4, 1739. + + [34] _Ibid._, November 14, 1748. + +Although nearly a century old, Anderson's Scots Pills were not cited +for sale in the pages of the _Boston News-Letter_ until August 23, +1750, two months after the much more recent Turlington's Balsam of Life +first put in its appearance.[35] During the same year, the British +confusion over British Oil was reflected in America. Boden's and +Darby's variety preceded the Betton brand into the _News-Letter_ pages +by a fortnight.[36] It was the latter, however, which was to win the +day in Boston, for almost all subsequent advertising specified the +Betton Oil. Godfrey's Cordial was first mentioned in 1761.[37] Thus, of +the ten old English patent medicines which are the focus of the present +study, eight had been advertised in the _Boston News-Letter_. The other +two, Steer's Opodeldoc and Dalby's Carminative, did not reach the +market before this colonial journal fell prey to the heightening +tensions of early 1776. + + [35] _Ibid._, June 7, 1750. + + [36] _Ibid._, May 24, 1750. + + [37] _Ibid._, December 31, 1761. + +By the 1750's, the names of several old English nostrums were appearing +fairly frequently in the advertising of colonial apothecaries, not only +in Boston but in other colonial towns. In Williamsburg, for example, a +steady increase occurs in the number of references and the length of +the lists of the English patent medicines advertised in the _Virginia +Gazette_ from their first mention into the early 1760's.[38] This +journal--which later had competing issues by different editors--was +launched in 1736, and the next year George Gilmer advised customers +that, in addition to "all manner of Chymical and Galenical Medicines," +he could furnish, at his old shop near the Governor's, "Bateman's +Drops, Squires Elixir, Anderson's Pills."[39] The other remedies +appeared in due time, Stoughton's and Daffy's Elixirs in 1745, +Turlington's Balsam in 1746, Godfrey's Cordial in 1751, Hooper's Pills +in 1752, and Betton's British Oil in 1770. + + [38] Lester J. Cappon and Stella F. Duff, _Virginia Gazette + index, 1736-1780_, Williamsburg, 1950, 2 vols. + + [39] _Virginia Gazette_, Williamsburg, May 27, 1737. + +A spot check of newspapers in Philadelphia and New York reveals a +pattern quite similar. Residents of the middle colonies, like those to +the north and the south, could buy the basic English brands, and it was +during the 1750's that the notices of freshly-arrived supplies ceased +to be rare in advertising columns and became a frequent occurrence. +Thomas Preston, for example, announced to residents of Philadelphia in +1768 that he had just received a supply of Anderson's, Hooper's, +Bateman's, Betton's, Daffy's, Stoughton's, Turlington's, and Godfrey's +remedies.[40] Not only were these medicines for sale at apothecary +shops, but they were sold by postmasters, goldsmiths, grocers, hair +dressers, tailors, printers, booksellers, cork cutters, the post-rider +between Philadelphia and Williamsburg, and by many colonial American +physicians. + + [40] _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Philadelphia, December 1, 1768. + +It is a matter for comment that American newspaper advertising of the +English packaged medicines was singularly drab. In the mother country, +the proprietors or their heirs were faced with vigorous competition. It +behooved them to sharpen up their adjectives and reach for their +vitriol. In America the apothecary or merchant had no proprietary +interest in any of the different brands of the imported medicines which +were sold. Moreover, there was probably no great surplus of supply over +demand in America as in Britain, so the task of selling the stock on +hand was less difficult and required less vigorous promotion. Also, +advertising space in the few American weeklies was more at a premium +than in the more frequent and numerous English journals. With rare +exceptions, therefore, the old English patent medicines were merely +mentioned by name in American advertising. Seldom did one receive the +individual attention accorded by Samuel Emlen to Godfrey's Cordial in +Benjamin Franklin's _Pennsylvania Gazette_ for June 26, 1732. The ad +ran like this: + + "Dr. Godfrey's General Cordial. So universally approved of for the + Cholick, and all Manners cf Pains in the Bowels, Fluxes, Fevers, + Small-Pox, Measles, Rheumatism, Coughs, Colds, and Restlessness in + Men, Women, and Children; and particularly for several Ailments + incident to Child-bearing Women, and Relief of young Children in + breeding their Teeth." + +[Illustration: Figure 5.--PAMPHLET, DATED 1731, ON BEHALF OF BATEMAN'S +PECTORAL DROPS. It was published by John Peter Zenger in New York. +Original preserved in the New York Academy of Medicine Library. +(_Smithsonian photo 44286-D._)] + +Emlen's venturesomeness may have lain in the fact that he was not only +a retailer, but also an agent for the British manufacturer, for he +cited the names of those who sold Godfrey's Cordial in nearby towns. +Even at that, this appeal, consisting merely of a list of illnesses, +lacked the cleverness of contemporary English nostrum advertising. In +the whole span of the _Boston News-Letter_, beginning in 1704, it was +not until 1763 that a bookstore pulled out the stops with half a column +of lively prose in behalf of Dr. Hill's four unpatented nostrums.[41] +It seems a safe assumption that not only the medicines but the verbiage +were imported from London, where Dr. Hill had been at work endeavoring +to restore a Greek secret which "converts a Glass of Water into the +Nature and Quality of Asses Milk, with the Balsamick Addition...." + + [41] _Boston News-Letter_, Boston, November 24, 1763. + +The infrequency of extended fanciful promotion in behalf of the old +English nostrums in American newspaper advertising may have been +compensated for to some degree in broadside and pamphlet. A critic of +the medical scene in New York in the early 1750's asserted that +physicians used patent medicines which they learned about from "London +quack bills." This doctor complained, these were often their only +reading matter.[42] Such a judgment may be too severe. Certainly it is +difficult to validate today. Such pamphlets and broadsides do appear in +American archival collections. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania +contains a 2-page Turlington broadside,[43] while the Folger +Shakespeare Library in Washington has an earlier 46-page Turlington +pamphlet with testimonials reaching out toward America.[44] One such +certificate came from "a sailor before the mast, on board the ship +Britannia in the New York trade," and another cited a woman living in +Philadelphia who gave thanks for the cure of her dropsy. + + [42] James J. Walsh, _History of the Medical Society of the State + of New York_, New York, 1907. + + [43] Robert Turlington, "Turlington's Balsam of Life," 1755-1757. + A later reprint of this same circular is preserved in the Warshaw + Collection of Business Americana. + + [44] _Turlington's Balsam of Life_ (see footnote 15). + +A broadside in the Warshaw Collection touting Bateman's Drops noted +that "extraordinary demands have been made for Maryland, New-York, +Jamaica, etc. where their virtues have been truely experienced with the +greatest satisfaction."[45] That such promotional items are extremely +rare does not mean they were not abundant in the mid-18th century, for +this type of printed matter, then as now, was likely to be looked at +and thrown away. A certain amount of nostrum literature was undoubtedly +imported from Britain. For example, in 1753 apothecary James Carter of +Williamsburg ordered from England "3 Quire Stoughton's Directions" +along with "1/2 Groce Stoughton Vials."[46] These broadsides or +circulars served a twofold purpose. Not only did they promote the +medicine, but they actually served as the labels for the bottles. Early +packages of these patent medicines which have been discovered indicate +that paper labels were seldom applied to the glass bottles; instead, +the bottle was tightly wrapped and sealed in one of these broadsides. + + [45] "Dr. Bateman's Drops" (see footnote 7). + + [46] James Carter, Apothecary account book, Williamsburg + [1752-1773]. Manuscript original preserved at Colonial + Williamsburg, Virginia. + +American imprints seeking to promote the English patent medicines were +certainly rare. The most significant example may be found in the +Library of the New York Academy of Medicine.[47] In 1731 James Wallace, +a New York merchant, became American agent for the sale of Dr. +Bateman's Pectoral Drops. To help him with his new venture, Wallace +took a copy of the London promotional pamphlet to a New York printer to +be reproduced. The printer was John Peter Zenger, not yet an editor and +three years away from the events which were to link his name +inextricably with the concept of the freedom of the press. This 1731 +pamphlet may well have been the earliest work on any medical theme to +be printed in New York.[48] + + [47] _A short treatise of the virtues of Dr. Bateman's Pectoral + Drops_ (see footnote 6). + + [48] Gertrude L. Annan, "Printing and medicine," _Bulletin of the + Medical Library Association_, March 1940, vol. 28, p. 155. + +Now and then a physician might frown on his fellows for reading such +literature and prescribing such remedies, but he was in a minority. +Colonial doctors, by and large, had no qualms about employing the +packaged medicines. It was a doctor who first advertised Anderson's +Pills and Bateman's Drops in Williamsburg;[49] it was another, +migrating from England to the Virginia frontier, who founded a town and +dosed those who came to dwell therein with Bateman's Drops, +Turlington's Balsam, and other patent medicines.[50] + + [49] Wyndham B. Blanton, _Medicine in Virginia in the eighteenth + century_, Richmond, Virginia, 1931, pp. 33-34. + + [50] Maurice Bear Gordon, _Aesculapius comes to the colonies_, + Ventnor, New Jersey, 1949, p. 39. + + +Complex Formulas and Distinctive Packages + +Indeed, the status of medical knowledge, medical need, and medical +ethics in the 18th century permitted patent medicines to fit quite +comfortably into the environment. As to what actually caused diseases, +man knew little more than had the ancient Greeks. There were many +theories, however, and the speculations of the learned often sound as +quaint in retrospect as do the cocky assertions of the quack bills. +Pamphlet warfare among physicians about their conflicting theories +achieved an acrimony not surpassed by the competing advertisers of +Stoughton's Elixir. The aristocratic practitioners of England, the +London College of Physicians, refused to expand their ranks even at a +time when there were in the city more than 1,300 serious cases of +illness a day to every member of the College. The masses had to +look elsewhere, and turned to apothecaries, surgeons, quacks, and +self-treatment.[51] The lines were drawn even less sharply in colonial +America, and there was no group to resemble the London College in +prestige and authority. Medical laissez-faire prevailed. "Practitioners +are laureated gratis with a title feather of Doctor," wrote a New +Englander in 1690. "Potecaries, surgeons & midwifes are dignified +acc[ording] to successe."[52] Such an atmosphere gave free rein to +self-dosage, either with an herbal mixture found in the pages of a +home-remedy book or with Daffy's Elixir. + + [51] Fielding H. Garrison, _An introduction to the history of + medicine_, Philadelphia, 1924, pp. 405-408; and Richard H. + Shryock. _The development of modern medicine_, New York, 1947, + pp. 51-54. + + [52] Kittredge, _op. cit._ (footnote 25). + +In the 18th century, drugs were still prescribed that dated back to the +dawn of medicine. There were Theriac or Mithridatum, Hiera Picra (or +Holy Bitters), and Terra Sigillata. Newer botanicals from the Orient +and the New World, as well as the "chymicals" reputedly introduced by +Paracelsus, found their way into these ancient formulas. Since the +precise action of individual drugs in relation to given ailments was +but hazily known, there was a tendency to blanket assorted +possibilities by mixing numerous ingredients into the same formula. The +formularies of the Middle Ages encouraged this so-called +"polypharmacy." For example the _Antidotarium Nicolai_, written about +A.D. 1100 at Salerno, described 38 ingredients in Confectio Adrianum, +35 ingredients in Confectio Atanasia, and 48 ingredients in Confectio +Esdra. Theriac or Mithridatum grew in complexity until by the 16th +century it had some 60 different ingredients. + +It was in this tradition of complex mixtures that most of the patent +medicines may be placed. Richard Stoughton claimed 22 ingredients for +his Elixir, and Robert Turlington, in his patent specification, named +27. Although other proprietors had shorter lists or were silent on the +number of ingredients, a major part of their secrecy really lay in +having complicated formulas. Even though rivals might detect the major +active ingredients, the original proprietor could claim that only he +knew all the elements in their proper proportions and the secret of +their blending. + +Not only in complexity did the patent medicines resemble regular +pharmaceutical compounds of the 18th century. In the nature of their +composition they were blood brothers of preparations in the various +pharmacopoeias and formularies. Indeed, there was much borrowing in +both directions. An official formula of one year might blossom out the +next in a fancy bottle bearing a proprietor's name. At the same time, +the essential recipe of a patent medicine, deprived of its original +cognomen and given a Latin name indicative of its composition or +therapeutic nature, might suddenly appear in one of the official +volumes. + +For example, the formula for Daffy's Elixir was adopted by the +_Pharmacopoeia Londinensis_ in 1721 under the title of "Elixir Salutis" +and later by the _Pharmacopoeia Edinburghensis_ as "Tinctura sennae +composita" (Compound Senna Tincture). Similarly the essential formula +for Stoughton's Elixir was adopted by the _Pharmacopoeia +Edinburghensis_ as early as 1762 under the name of "Elixir Stomachium," +and later as "Compound Tincture of Gentian" (as in the _Pharmacopoeia +of the Massachusetts Medical Society_ of 1808). Only two years after +Turlington obtained his "Balsam of Life" patent, the _Pharmacopoeia +Londinensis_ introduced a recipe under the title of "Balsamum +Traumaticum" which eventually became Compound Tincture of Benzoin, with +the synonym Turlington's Balsam. On the other hand, none of these early +English patent medicines, including Stoughton's Elixir and Turlington's +Balsam, offered anything new, except possibly new combinations or new +proportions of ingredients already widely employed in medicine. +Formulas similar in composition to those patented or marketed as "new +inventions" can in every case be found in such 17th-century +pharmacopoeias as William Salmon's _Pharmacopoeia Londinensis_. + +[Illustration: Figure 6.--BOTTLES OF BATEMAN'S PECTORAL DROPS, 19th +century (left) and early 20th century (right), from the Samuel Aker, +David and George Kass collection, Albany, New York. (_Smithsonian photo +44287-A._)] + +Whatever similarities existed between the canons of regular pharmacy +and the composition of patent medicines, there was a decided difference +in the methods of marketing. Although patent medicines were often +prescription items, they did not have to be. The way they looked on a +shelf made them so easily recognizable that even the most loutish +illiterate could tell one from another. As the nostrum proprietor did +so much to pioneer in advertising psychology, so he also blazed a trail +with respect to distinctive packaging. The popularity of the old +English remedies, year in and year out, owed much to the fact that +though the ingredients inside might vary (unbeknownst to the customer), +the shape of the bottle did not. This was the reason proprietors raised +such a hue and cry about counterfeiters. The secret of a formula might, +if only to a degree, be retained, but simulation of bottle design and +printed wrapper was easily accomplished, and to the average customer +these externals were the medicine. + +This fundamental fact was to be recognized by the committee of +Philadelphia pharmacists in 1824. "We are aware" the committeemen +reported, "that long custom has so strongly associated the idea of the +genuineness of the Patent medicines, with particular shapes of the +vials that contain them, and with certain printed labels, as to render +an alteration in them an affair of difficulty. Many who use these +preparations would not purchase British Oil that was put up in a +conical vial, nor Turlington's Balsam in a cylindrical one. The stamp +of the excise, the king's royal patent, the seal and coat of arms which +are to prevent counterfeits, the solemn caution against quacks and +imposters, and the certified lists of incredible cures, [all these were +printed on the bottle wrappers] have not even now lost their +influence." Nor were they for years to come. + +Thus after 1754 the Turlington Balsam bottle was pear-shaped, with +sloping shoulders, and molded into the glass in crude raised capitals +were the proprietor's name and his claim of THE KINGS ROYAL PATENT.[53] +Turlington during his life had made one modification. He explained it +in a broadside, saying that "to prevent the Villainy of some Persons +who buying up my empty Bottles, have basely and wickedly put therein a +vile spurious Counterfeit-Sort," he had changed the bottle shape. The +date molded into the glass on his supply of new genuine bottles was +January 26, 1754.[54] This was, perhaps, a very fine point of +difference from the perspective of the average customer, and in any +case the bottle was hidden under its paper wrapper. + + [53] "From past times an original bottle of Turlington's Balsam," + _Chemist and Druggist_, September 23, 1905, vol. 67, p. 525; + Stewart Schackne, "Bottles," _American Druggist_, October 1933, + vol. 88, pp. 78-81, 186-188, 190, 194; Frederick Fairchild + Sherman, "Some early bottles," _Antiques_, vol. 3, pp. 122-123; + and Stephen Van Rensselaer, _Early American bottles and flasks_, + Peterborough, New Hampshire, 1926. + + [54] Waldo R. Wedel and George B. Griffenhagen, "An English + balsam among the Dakota aborigines," _American Journal of + Pharmacy_, December 1954, vol. 126, pp. 409-415. + +The British Oil bottle was tall and slender and it rested on a square +base. Godfrey's Cordial came in a conical vial with steep-pitched +sides, the cone's point replaced by a narrow mouth.[55] Bateman's +Pectoral Drops were packaged in a more common "phial"--a tall and +slender cylindrical bottle.[56] Dalby's Carminative came in a bottle +not unlike the Godfrey's Cordial bottle, except that Dalby's was +impressed with the inscription DALBY'S CARMINATIV.[57] Steer's +Opodeldoc bottles were cylindrical in shape, with a wide mouth; some +apparently were inscribed OPODELDOC while others carried no such +inscription. At least one brand of Daffy's Elixir was packaged in a +globular bottle, according to a picture in a 1743 advertisement.[58] +Speculation regarding the size and shape of the Stoughton bottle +varies.[59] At least one Stoughton bottle was described as "Round +amber. Tapered from domed shoulder to base. Long 5 in. bulged neck. +Square flanged mouth. Flat base."[60] + + [55] Sherman, _op. cit._ (footnote 53). + + [56] Schackne, _op. cit._ (footnote 53). + + [57] George S. and Helen McKearin, _American glass_, New York, + 1941. + + [58] _Daily Advertiser_, London, October 29, 1743. + + [59] George Griffenhagen, "Stodgy as a Stoughton bottle," + _Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, Practical + Pharmacy Edition_, January 1956, vol. 17, p. 20; Mitford B. + Mathews, ed., _A dictionary of Americanisms on historical + principles_, Chicago, 1951, 2 vols.; Bertha Kitchell Whyte, + _Wisconsin heritage_, Boston, 1954; Charles Earle Funk, _Heavens + to Betsy! and other curious sayings_, New York, 1955. + + [60] James H. Thompson, _Bitters bottles_, Watkins Glen, New + York, 1947, p. 60. + +Hooper's and Anderson's Scots Pills were, of course, not packaged in +bottles (at least not the earliest), but were instead sold in the +typical oval chip-wood pill boxes. On the lid of the box containing +Hooper's Pills was stamped this inscription: DR. JOHN HOOPER'S FEMALE +PILLS: BY THE KING'S PATENT 21 JULY 1743 NO. 592. So far no example or +illustration of Anderson's Scots Pills has been found. At least one +producer, it will be remembered (page 157), sealed the box in black wax +bearing a lion rampant, three mallets argent, and the bust of Dr. +Anderson. + + +Source of Supply Severed + +On September 29, 1774, John Boyd's "medicinal store" in Baltimore +followed the time-honored custom of advertising in the _Maryland +Gazette_ a fresh supply of medicines newly at hand from England. To +this intelligence was added a warning. Since nonimportation agreements +by colonial merchants were imminent, which bade fair to make goods hard +to get, customers would be wise to make their purchases before the +supply became exhausted. Boyd's prediction was sound. The Boston Tea +Party of the previous December had evoked from Parliament a handful of +repressive measures, the Intolerable Acts, and at the time of Boyd's +advertisement, the first Continental Congress in session was soon to +declare that all imports from Great Britain should be halted. + +[Illustration: Figure 7.--BOTTLES OF BRITISH OIL, 19th and early 20th +century, from the Samuel Aker, David and George Kass collection, +Albany, New York. (_Smithsonian photo 44201-B._)] + +This Baltimore scare advertising may well have been heeded by Boyd's +customers, for trade with the mother country had been interrupted +before; in the wake of the Townshend Acts in 1767, when Parliament had +placed import duties on various products, including tea, American +merchants in various cities had entered into nonimportation agreements. +Certainly, there was a decided decrease in the Boston advertising of +patent medicines received from London. With respect to imports of any +kind, it became necessary to explain, and one merchant noted that his +goods were "the Remains of a Consignment receiv'd before the +Non-Importation Agreement took place."[61] When Parliament yielded to +the financial pressure and abolished all the taxes but the one on tea, +nonimportation collapsed. This fact is reflected in an advertisement +listing nearly a score of patent medicines, including the remedies of +Turlington, Bateman, the Bettons, Anderson, Hooper, Godfrey, Daffy, and +Stoughton, as "Just come to Hand and Warranted Genuine" on Captain +Dane's ship, "directly from the Original Warehouse kept by DICEY and +OKELL in Bow Street, London."[62] + + [61] _Massachusetts Gazette_, Boston, December 21, 1769. + + [62] _Ibid._, April 25, 1771. + +The days of such ample importations, however, were doomed, as commerce +fell prey to the growing revolutionary agitation. The last medical +advertisement in the _Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly +News-Letter_, before its demise the following February, appeared five +months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord.[63] The apothecary +at the Sign of the Unicorn was frank about the situation. He had +imported fresh drugs and medicines every fall and spring up to the +preceding June. He still had some on hand. Doctors and others should be +advised. + + [63] _Ibid._, September 7, 1775. + +Implicit in the advertisement is the suggestion that the securing of +new supplies under the circumstances would be highly uncertain. That +pre-war stocks did hold out, sometimes well into the war years may be +deduced from a Williamsburg apothecary's advertisement.[64] W. Carter +took the occasion of the ending of a partnership with his brother to +publish a sort of inventory. Along with the "syrup and ointment pots, +all neatly painted and lettered," the crabs eyes and claws, the Spanish +flies, he listed a dozen patent medicines, including the remedies of +Anderson, Bateman, and Daffy. + + [64] _Virginia Gazette_ (edited by Dixon and Nicholson), + Williamsburg, June 12, 1779. + +Even the British blockade failed to prevent patent medicines from being +shipped from wholesaler to retailer. In the account book of a Salem, +Massachusetts, apothecary,[65] the following entry appears: + + 4 cases Containing + 1 Dozn Bottles Godfreys Cordial 4/ + 5 Dozn Do Smaller Turling Bals 18/ + 8 Dozn Bettons British Oil 8/ + 6-1/2 Dozn Hoopers Female Pills 10/ + 4 Dozn nd 8 Boxs And. Pills 10/ + + SALEM APRIL 8th 1777 + + The above 13 packages and 4 cases of medicines are ship'd on Board + the Sloop Called the Two Brothers Saml West Master. On Account and + [illegible word] of Mr. Oliver Smith of Boston Apothecary and to + him consigned. The cases are unmarked being ship'd at Night. Error + Excepted Jon. Waldo. + + [65] Jonathon Waldo, Apothecary account book, Salem, + Massachusetts [1770-1790]. Manuscript original preserved in + the Library of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +[Illustration: Figure 8.--DALBY'S CARMINATIVE, two sides of a bottle +from the McKearin collection, Hoosick Falls, New York. (_Smithsonian +photo 44287-C._)] + +The sloop was undoubtedly one of the small coastal type ships employed +by the colonists, and the British blockade required such ominous +precautions as "unmarked cases" and "ship'd by Night." + +Such random assortments of prewar importations could hardly have met +the American demand for the old English patent medicines created by a +half century of use. Doubtless many embattled farmers had to confront +their ailments without the accustomed English-made remedies. However, +as early as the 1750's, at least two of the English patent medicines, +Daffy's and Stoughton's Elixirs, were being compounded in the +colonies and packaged in empty bottles shipped from England. +Apothecary Carter of Williamsburg ordered sizable quantities of empty +"Stoughton Vials" from 1752 through 1770, and occasionally ordered +empty Daffy's bottles.[66] In 1774 apothecary Waldo of Salem noted +the receipt from England of "1 Groce Stoughton Phials" and "1 Groce +Daffy's Do."[67] Joseph Stansbury, who sold china and glass in +Philadelphia, advertised "Daffy's Elixir Bottles" a week after the +Declaration of Independence.[68] Stoughton's and Daffy's Elixirs, +therefore, were being compounded by the American apothecaries during +the Revolutionary War. Formulas for both preparations were official +in the London and Edinburgh pharmacopoeias, as well as in unofficial +formularies like Quincy's _Pharmacopoeias officinalis extemporanea_ +of 1765. All these publications were used widely by American +physicians and apothecaries. + + [66] Carter, _op. cit._ (footnote 46). + + [67] Waldo, _op. cit._ (footnote 65). + + [68] _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Philadelphia, July 11, 1776. + +It is not known how extensively, during the struggle for independence, +this custom was adopted for English patent medicines other than Daffy's +and Stoughton's. However, imitation of English patent medicines in +America was to increase, and it contributed to the chaos that beset the +nostrum field when the war was over and the original articles from +England were once more available. And they were bought. An +advertisement at a time when the fighting was over and peace +negotiations were still under way indicated that the Baltimore post +office had half a dozen of the familiar English remedies for sale.[69] +Two years later a New York store turned to tortured rhyme to convey the +same message:[70] + + Medicines approv'd by royal charter, + James, Godfry, Anderson, Court-plaster, + With Keyser's, Hooper's Lockyer's Pills, + And Honey Balsam Doctor Hill's; + Bateman and Daffy, Jesuits drops, + And all the Tinctures of the shops, + As Stoughton, Turlington and Grenough, + Pure British Oil and Haerlem Ditto.... + + [69] _Maryland Journal and Baltimore Gazette_, Baltimore, October + 29, 1782. + + [70] _New York Packet and the American Advertiser_, New York, + October 11, 1784. + +Later in the decade, the Salem apothecary, Jonathon Waldo, made a list +of "An assortment [of patent medicines] Usually Called For." The +imported brand of Turlington's Balsam, Waldo stated, was "very dear" at +36 shillings a dozen, adding that his "own" was worth but 15 shillings +for the same quantity. The English original of another nostrum, Essence +of Peppermint, he listed at 18 shillings a dozen, his own at a mere +10/6.[71] Despite the price differential, importations continued. A +Beverly, Massachusetts, druggist, Robert Rantoul, in 1799 ordered from +London filled boxes and bottles of Anderson's Pills, Bateman's Drops, +Steer's Opodeldoc, and Turlington's Balsam, along with the empty vials +in which to put British Oil and Essence of Peppermint.[72] For decades +thereafter the catalogs of wholesale drug firms continued to specify +two grades of various patent medicines for sale, termed "English" and +"American," "true" and "common," or "genuine" and "imitation."[73] This +had not been the case in patent medicine listings of 18th-century +catalogs.[74] + + [71] Waldo, _op. cit._ (footnote 65). + + [72] Robert Rantoul, Apothecary daybooks, 3 vols., Beverly, + Massachusetts [1796-1812]. Manuscript originals preserved in the + Beverly Historical Society. Also see Robert W. Lovett, "Squire + Rantoul and his drug store," _Bulletin of the Business Historical + Society_, June 1951, vol. 25, pp. 99-114. + + [73] Joel and Jotham Post, _A catalogue of drugs, medicines & + chemicals, sold wholesale & retail, by Joel and Jotham Post, + druggists, corner of Wall and William-Streets_, New York, 1804; + Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, _Catalogue of the materia + medica and of the pharmaceutical preparations, with the uniform + prices of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy_, Boston, 1828; + George W. Carpenter, _Essays on some of the most important + articles of the materia medica ... to which is added a catalogue + of medicines, surgical instruments, etc._, Philadelphia, 1834. + + [74] John Dunlap, _Catalogus medicinarum et pharmacorum_, + Philadelphia, 1771; John Day, _Catalogue of drugs, chymical and + galenical preparations, shop furniture, patent medicines, and + surgical instruments sold by John Day and Company, druggists and + chymists in second-street_, Philadelphia, 1771; George + Griffenhagen, "The Day-Dunlap 1771 pharmaceutical catalog," + _American Journal of Pharmacy_, September 1955, vol. 127, pp. + 296-302; also _The New York Physician and American Medicine_, May + 1956, vol. 46, pp. 42-44; Smith and Bartlett, _Catalogue of drugs + and medicines, instruments and utensils, dyestuffs, groceries, + and painters' colours, imported, prepared, and sold, by Smith and + Bartlett, at their druggists store and apothecaries shop_, + Boston, 1795. + +[Illustration: Figure 9.--GODFREY'S CORDIAL, 19th-century bottles from +the Samuel Aker, David and George Kass collection, Albany, New York. +(_Smithsonian photo 44201-C._)] + +In buying Anderson's and Bateman's remedies from London in 1799, Robert +Rantoul of Massachusetts specified that they be secured from Dicey. It +will be remembered that 60 years earlier William Dicey, John Cluer, and +Robert Raikes were the group of entrepreneurs who had aided Benjamin +Okell in patenting the pectoral drops bearing Bateman's name. Then and +throughout the century, this concern continued to operate a warehouse +in the Bow Churchyard, Cheapside, London. In 1721, it was known as the +"Printing-house and Picture Warehouse" of John Cluer, printer,[75] but +by 1790, it was simply the "Medicinal Warehouse" of Bow Churchyard, +Cheapside. This address lay in the center of the London area whence +came nearly all of the British goods exported to America.[76] It had +been the location of many merchants who had migrated to New England in +the 17th century, and these newcomers had done business with their +erstwhile associates who did not leave home. Thus were started trade +channels which continued to run. The Bow Churchyard Warehouse may have +been the major exporter of English patent medicines to colonial +America, although others of importance were located in the same London +region, in particular Robert Turlington of Lombard Street and Francis +Newbery of St. Paul's Churchyard. The significance of the fact that +there were key suppliers of patent medicines for the American market +lies in the selection process which resulted. Out of the several +hundred patent medicines which 18th-century Britain had available, +Americans dosed themselves with that score or more which the major +exporters shipped to colonial ports. + + [75] _London Mercury_, London, August 19-26, 1721. + + [76] Bernard Bailyn, _The New England merchants in the + seventeenth century_, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1955, pp. 35-36. + +Not only did the Bow Churchyard Warehouse firm have Bateman's Drops. It +will be remembered that in 1721 they advertised that they were +preparing Daffy's Elixir. In 1743, they and Newbery were made exclusive +vendors of Hooper's Pills.[77] By 1750, the firm was also marketing +British Oil, Anderson's Pills, and Stoughton's Elixir.[78] Turlington +in 1755 was selling not only his Balsam of Life, but was also vending +Daffy's Elixir, Godfrey's Cordial, and Stoughton's Elixir.[79] After +the tension of the Townshend Acts, it was the Bow Churchyard Warehouse +which supplied a Boston apothecary with a large supply of nostrums, +including all the eight patent medicines then in existence of the ten +with which this discussion is primarily concerned.[80] On November 29, +1770, the _Virginia Gazette_ (edited by Purdie and Dixon) reported a +shipment, including Bateman's, Hooper's, Betton's, Anderson's, and +Godfrey's remedies, just received "from Dr. Bateman's original +wholesale warehouse in London" (the Bow Churchyard Warehouse). When +Dalby's Carminative and Steer's Opodeldoc came on the market in the +1780's, it was Francis Newbery who had them for sale. Both the Newbery +and Dicey (Bow Churchyard Warehouse) firms continued to operate in the +post-Revolutionary years. Thus, it was no accident but rather vigorous +commercial promotion over the decades, that resulted in the most +popular items on the Dicey and Newbery lists appearing in the +Philadelphia College of Pharmacy pamphlet published in 1824. And +although the same old firms continued to export the same old medicines +to the new United States, the back of the business was broken. The +imitation spurred by wartime necessity became the post-war pattern. + + [77] _Daily Advertiser_, London, September 23, 1743. + + [78] "Dr. Bateman's Drops" (see footnote 7). + + [79] Turlington, _op. cit._ (footnote 15). + + [80] _Massachusetts Gazette_, Boston, December 21, 1769. + +The key recipes were to be found in formula books. Beginning in the +1790's, even American editions of John Wesley's _Primitive physic_ +included formulas for Daffy's, Turlington's, and Stoughton's remedies +which the founder of Methodism had introduced into English editions of +this guidebook to health shortly before his death.[81] + + [81] John Wesley, _Primitive physic_, 21st ed., London, 1785; + _ibid._, 22nd ed., London, 1788; _ibid._, 16th Amer. ed., + Trenton, 1788; _ibid._, 22nd Amer. ed., Philadelphia, 1791; + George Dock, "The 'primitive physic' of Rev. John Wesley," + _Journal of the American Medical Association_, February 20, 1915, + vol. 64, pp. 629-638. + +The homemade versions, as Jonathon Waldo had recorded (see p. 171), +were about half as costly. The state of affairs at the turn of the new +century is illustrated in the surviving business papers of the Beverly +druggist, Robert Rantoul. In 1799 he had imported the British Oil and +Essence of Peppermint bottles. In 1802 he reordered the latter, +specifying that they should not have molded in the glass the words "by +the Kings Patent." Rantoul wrote a formula for this nostrum in his +formula book, and from it he filled 66 bottles in December 1801 and 202 +bottles in June 1803. About the same time he began making and bottling +Turlington's Balsam, ordering bottles of two sizes from London. His +formula book contains these entries: "Jany 4th, 1804 filled 54 small +turlingtons with 37 oz. Balsam," and "Jany 20th, 1804 filled 144 small +turlingtons with 90-1/4 oz. Balsam and 9 Large Bottles with 8-1/4 +oz."[82] + + [82] Rantoul, _op. cit._ (footnote 72). + +Two decades later the imitation of the English proprietaries was even +bigger business. In 1821 William A. Brewer became apprenticed to a +druggist in Boston. A number of the old English brands, he recalled, +were still imported and sold at the time. But his apprenticeship years +were heavily encumbered with duties involving the American versions. +"Many, very many, days were spent," Brewer remembered, "in compounding +these imitations, cleaning the vials, fitting, corking, labelling, +stamping with fac-similes of the English Government stamp, and in +wrapping them, with ... little regard to the originator's rights, or +that of their heirs...." The British nostrums chiefly imitated in this +Boston shop were Steer's, Bateman's, Godfrey's, Dalby's, Betton's, and +Stoughton's. The last was a major seller. The store loft was mostly +filled with orange peel and gentian, and the laboratory had "a heavy +oaken press, fastened to the wall with iron clamps and bolts, which was +used in pressing out 'Stoughton's Bitters,' of which we usually +prepared a hogshead full at one time." A large quantity was needed. In +those days, Brewer asserted, "almost everybody indulged in Stoughton's +elixir as morning bitters." [83] + + [83] William A. Brewer, "Reminiscences of an old pharmacist." + _Pharmaceutical Record_, August 1, 1884, vol. 4, p. 326. + +[Illustration: Figure 10.--GODFREY'S CORDIAL, early 20th century +bottles manufactured in the U.S.A. (_U.S. National Museum cat. Nos. +M-6989, and M-6990; Smithsonian photo 44287 B._)] + +Other drugstores certainly followed the practice of Brewer's employer, +in cleaning up and refilling bottles that had previously been drained +of their old English medicines. The chief source of bottles to hold the +American imitations, however, was the same as that to which Waldo and +Rantoul had turned, English glass factories. It was not so easy for +Americans to fabricate the vials as it was for them to compound the +mixtures to fill them. In the years before the War of 1812, the British +glass industry maintained a virtual monopoly of the specially-shaped +bottles for Bateman's, Turlington's, and the other British remedies. +When in the 1820's the first titan of made-in-America nostrums, Thomas +W. Dyott of Philadelphia, appeared upon the scene, this venturesome +entrepreneur decided to make bottles not only for his own assorted +remedies but also for the popular English brands. In time he succeeded +in improving the quality of American bottle glass and in drastically +reducing prices. The standard cost for most of the old English vials +under the British monopoly had been $5.50 a gross. By the early 1830's +Dyott had cut the price to under two dollars.[84] + + [84] _Democratic Press_, Philadelphia, July 1 and October 28, + 1824; Thomas W. Dyott, _An exposition of the system of moral and + mental abor, established at the glass factory of Dyottsville_, + Philadelphia, 1833; and Joseph D. Weeks, "Reports on the + manufacture of glass," _Report of the manufactures of the United + States at the tenth census_, Washington, D. C, 1883. + +[Illustration: Figure 11.--AN ORIGINAL PACKAGE OF HOOPER'S PILLS, from +the Samuel Aker, David and George Kass collection, Albany, New York. +(_Smithsonian photo_ 44201.)] + +Other American glass manufactories followed suit. For example, in 1835 +the Free Will Glass Manufactory was making "Godfrey's Cordial," +"Turlington's Balsam," and "Opodeldoc Bitters bottles."[85] An 1848 +broadside entitled "The Glassblowers' List of Prices of Druggist's +Ware," a broadside preserved at the Smithsonian Institution, includes +listings for Turlington's Balsam, Godfrey's Cordial, Dalby's and Small +and Large Opodeldoc bottles, among many other American patent medicine +bottles. + + [85] Van Rensscalar, _op. cit._, (footnote 53), p. 151. + +In the daybook of the Beverly, Massachusetts, apothecary,[86] were +inscribed for Turlington's Balsam, three separate formulas, each +markedly different from the others. A Philadelphia medical journal in +1811 contained a complaint that Americans were using calomel in the +preparation of Anderson's Scots Pills, and that this practice was a +deviation both from the original formula and from the different but +still all-vegetable formula by which the pills were being made in +England.[87] Various books were published revealing the "true" +formulas, in conflicting versions.[88] + + [86] Rantoul, _op. cit._ (footnote 72). + + [87] _Philadelphia Medical Museum_, new ser., vol. 1, p. 130, + 1811. + + [88] _Formulae selectae; or a collection of prescriptions of + eminent physicians, and the most celebrated patent medicines_, + New York, 1818; John Ayrton Paris, _Pharmacologia; or the history + of medicinal substances, with a view to establish the art of + prescribing and of composing extemporaneous formulae upon fixed + and scientific principles_, New York, 1822. + + +Philadelphia College of Pharmacy Formulary + +As the years went by and therapeutic laissez-faire continued to +operate, conditions worsened. By the early 1820's, the old English +patent medicines, whether of dwindling British vintage or of burgeoning +American manufacture, were as familiar as laudanum or castor oil. + +With the demand so extensive and the state of production so chaotic, +the officials of the new Philadelphia College of Pharmacy were +persuaded that remedial action was mandatory. In May 1822, the Board of +Trustees resolved to appoint a 5-man committee "to select from such +prescriptions for the preparation of Patent Medicines ..., as may be +submitted to them by the members of the College, those which in their +opinion, may be deemed most appropriate for the different +compositions." + +The committee chose for study "eight of the Patent Medicines most in +use," and sought to ascertain what ingredients these ancient remedies +ought by right to contain. Turning to the original formulas, where +these were given in English patent specifications, the pharmacists soon +became convinced that the information provided by the original +proprietors served "only to mislead." + +If the patent specifications were perhaps intentionally confusing, the +committee inquired, how could the original formulas really be known? +This quest seemed so fruitless that it was not pursued. Instead the +pharmacists turned to American experience in making the English +medicines. From many members of the College, and from other pharmacists +as well, recipes were secured. The result was shocking. Although almost +every one came bolstered with the assertion that it was true and +genuine, the formulas differed so markedly one from the other, the +committee reported, as to make "the task of reformation a very +difficult one." Indeed, in some cases, when two recipes bearing the +same old English name were compared, they were found to contain not one +ingredient in common. In other cases, the proportions of some basic +ingredient would vary widely. All the formulas collected for Bateman's +Pectoral Drops, for instance, contained opium, but the amount of opium +to liquid ingredients in one formula submitted was 1 to 14, while in +another it was 1 to 1,000. + +Setting forth boldly to strip these English nostrums of "their +extravagant pretensions," the committee sought to devise formulas for +their composition as simple and inexpensive as possible while yet +retaining the "chief compatible virtues" ascribed to them on the +traditional wrappers. + +Hooper's Female Pills had been from the beginning a cathartic and +emmenagogue. However, only aloes was common to all the recipes +submitted to the committee. This botanical, which still finds a place +in laxative products today, was retained by the committee as the +cathartic base, and to it were added "the Extract of Hellebore, the +Sulphate of Iron and the Myrrh as the best emmenagogues." + +Anderson's Scots Pills had been a "mild" purgative throughout its long +career, varying in composition "according to the judgement or fancy of +the preparer." Paris, an English physician, had earlier reported that +these pills consisted of aloes and jalap; the committee decided on +aloes, with small amounts of colocynth and gamboge, as the purgatives +of choice. + +Of Bateman's Pectoral Drops more divergent versions existed than of any +of the others. The committee settled on a formula of opium and camphor, +not unlike paragoric in composition, with catachu, anise flavoring, and +coloring added. Godfrey's Cordial also featured opium in widely varying +amounts. The committee chose a formula which would provide a grain of +opium per ounce, to which was added sassafras "as the carminative which +has become one of the chief features of the medicine." + +English apothecary Dalby had introduced his "Carminative" for "all +those fatal Disorders in the Bowels of Infants." The committee decided +that a grain of opium to the ounce, together with magnesia and three +volatile oils, were essential "for this mild carminative and laxative +... for children." + +Instead of the complex formula described by Robert Turlington for his +Balsam of Life, the committee settled on the official formula of +Compound Tincture of Benzoin, with balsam of peru, myrrh, and angelica +root added, to produce "an elegant and rich balsamic tincture." On the +other hand, the committee adopted "with slight variations, the +Linimentum Saponis of the old London Dispensatory" to which they, like +Steers, added only ammonia. + +The committee found two distinct types of British Oil on the market. +One employed oil of turpentine as its basic ingredient, while the other +utilized flaxseed oil. The committee decided that both oils, along with +several others in lesser quantities, were necessary to produce a +medicine "as exhibited in the directions" sold with British Oil. "Oil +of Bricks" which apparently was the essential ingredient of the Betton +British Oil, was described by the committee as "a nauseous and +unskilful preparation, which has long since been banished from the +Pharmacopoeias." + +Thus the Philadelphia pharmacists devised eight new standardized +formulas, aimed at retaining the therapeutic goals of the original +patent medicines, while brought abreast of current pharmaceutical +knowledge. Recognizing that the labeling had long contained +"extravagant pretensions and false assertions," the committee +recommended that the wrappers be modified to present only truthful +claims. If the College trustees should adopt the changes suggested, the +committee concluded optimistically, then "the reputation of the College +preparations would soon become widely spread, and we ... should reap +the benefit of the examination which has now been made, in an increased +public confidence in the Institution and its members; the influence of +which would be felt in extending the drug business of our city."[89] + + [89] Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, _Formulae for the + preparation of eight patent medicines, adopted by the + Philadelphia College of Pharmacy_, May 4, 1824; Joseph W. + England, ed., _The first century of the Philadelphia College of + Pharmacy_, 1821-1921, Philadelphia, 1922. + +The trustees felt this counsel to be wise, and ordered 250 copies of +the 12-page pamphlet to be printed. So popular did this first major +undertaking of the Philadelphia College prove that in 1833 the formulas +were reprinted in the pages of the journal published by the +College.[90] Again the demand was high, few numbers of the publication +were "more sought after," and in 1839 the formulas were printed once +again, this time with slight revisions.[91] + + [90] "Patent medicines," _Journal of the Philadelphia College of + Pharmacy_, April 1833, vol. 5, pp. 20-31. + + [91] C. Ellis, "Patent medicines," _American Journal of + Pharmacy_, April 1839, new ser., vol. 5, pp. 67-74. + +Thus had the old English patent medicines reached a new point in their +American odyssey. They had first crossed the Atlantic to serve the +financial interests of the men who promoted them. During the Revolution +they had lost their British identity while retaining their British +names. The Philadelphia pharmacists, while adopting them and reforming +their character, did not seek to monopolize them, as had the original +proprietors. They now could work for every man. + + +English Patent Medicines Go West + +The double reprinting of the formulas was one token of the continuing +role in American therapy of the old English patent medicines. There +were others. In 1829 with the establishment of a school of pharmacy in +New York City, the Philadelphia formulas were accepted as standard. The +new labels devised by the Philadelphians with their more modest claims +of efficacy had a good sale.[92] It was doubtless the Philadelphia +recipes which went into the Bateman and Turlington and Godfrey vials +with which a new druggist should be equipped "at the outset of +business," according to a book of practical counsel.[93] To local +merchants who lacked the knowledge or time to do it themselves, +drummers and peddlers vended the medicines already bottled. "Doctor" +William Euen of Philadelphia issued a pamphlet in 1840 to introduce his +son to "Physicians and Country Merchants." His primary concern was +dispensing nostrums bearing his own label, but his son was also +prepared to take orders for the old English patent medicines.[94] +Manufacturers and wholesalers of much better repute were prepared to +sell bottles for the same brands, empty or filled. + + [92] England, _op. cit._ (footnote 89), pp. 73, 103. + + [93] Carpenter, _op. cit._ (footnote 73). + + [94] William Euen, _A short expose on quackery ... or, + introduction of his son to physicians and country merchants_, + Philadelphia, 1840. + +[Illustration: Figure 12.--ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BRANDS OF HOOPER'S +FEMALE PILLS, an assortment of packages of from the Samuel Aker, David +and George Kass collection, Albany, New York. (_Smithsonian photo +44201-D._)] + +In the early 1850's a young pharmacist in upstate New York,[95] using +"old alcohol barrels for tanks," worked hard at concocting Bateman's +and Godfrey's and Steer's remedies. John Uri Lloyd of Cincinnati +recalled having compounded Godfrey's Cordial and Bateman's Drops, +usually making ten gallons in a single batch.[96] Out in Wisconsin, +another druggist was buying Godfrey's Cordial bottles at a dollar for +half a gross, sticking printed directions on them that cost twelve +cents for the same quantity, and selling the medicine at four ounces +for a quarter.[97] He also sold British Oil and Opodeldoc, the same old +English names dispensed by a druggist in another Wisconsin town, who in +addition kept Bateman's Oil in stock at thirteen cents the bottle.[98] +Godfrey's was listed in the 1860 inventory of an Illinois general store +at six cents a bottle.[99] + + [95] James Winchell Forbes, "The memoirs of an American + pharmacist," _Midland Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review_, 1911, + vol. 45, pp. 388-395. + + [96] John Uri Lloyd, "Eclectic fads," _Eclectic Medical Journal_, + October 1921, vol. 81, p. 2. + + [97] Cody & Johnson Drug Co., Apothecary daybooks, Watertown, + Wisconsin [1851-1872]. Manuscript originals preserved in the + State Historical Society of Wisconsin, cataloged under "Cady." + + [98] Swarthout and Silsbee, Druggists daybook, Columbus, + Wisconsin [1852-1853]. Manuscript original preserved in the State + Historical Society of Wisconsin. + + [99] McClaughry and Tyler, Invoice book, Fountain Green, Illinois + [1860-1877]. Manuscript original preserved in the Illinois State + Historical Society, Springfield. + +Farther west the same familiar names appeared. Indeed, the old English +patent medicines had long since moved westward with fur trader and +settler. As early as 1783, a trader in western Canada, shot by a rival, +called for Turlington's Balsam to stop the bleeding. Alas, in this +case, the remedy failed to work.[100] In 1800 that inveterate Methodist +traveler, Bishop Francis Asbury, resorted to Stoughton's Elixir when +afflicted with an intestinal complaint.[101] In 1808, some two months +after the first newspaper began publishing west of the Mississippi +River, a local store advised readers in the vicinity of St. Louis that +"a large supply of patent medicines" had just been received, among them +Godfrey's Cordial, British Oil, Turlington's Balsam, and Steer's +"Ofodeldo [sic]."[102] + + [100] Harold A. Innis, _Peter Pond, fur trader and adventurer_, + Toronto, 1930. + + [101] Peter Oliver, "Notes on science, medicine and public health + in the United States in the year 1800," _Bulletin of the History + of Medicine_. 1944, vol. 16, p. 129. + + [102] Isaac Lionberger, "Advertisements in the Missouri Gazette, + 1808-1811," _Missouri Historical Society Collections_, 1928-1931, + vol. 6, p. 21. + +Turlington's product played a particular role in the Indian trade, thus +demonstrating that the red man has not been limited in nostrum history +to providing medical secrets for the white man to exploit. Proof of +this has been demonstrated by archaeologists working under the auspices +of the Smithsonian Institution in both North and South Dakota. Two +pear-shaped bottles with Turlington's name and patent claims embossed +in the glass were excavated by a Smithsonian Institution River Basin +Surveys expedition in 1952, on the site of an old trading post known as +Fort Atkinson or Fort Bethold II, situated some 16 miles southeast of +the present Elbowoods, North Dakota. In 1954 the North Dakota +Historical Society found a third bottle nearby. These posts, operated +from the mid-1850's to the mid-1880's, served the Hidatsa and Mandan +Indians who dwelt in a town named Like-a-Fishhook Village. The medicine +bottles were made of cast glass, light green in color, probably of +American manufacture. More interesting is the bottle from South Dakota. +It was excavated in 1923 near Mobridge at a site which was the +principal village of the Arikara Indians from about 1800 to 1833, a +town visited by Lewis and Clark as they ascended the Missouri River in +1804. This bottle, made of English lead glass and therefore an imported +article, was unearthed from a grave in the Indian burying ground. +Throughout history the claims made in behalf of patent medicines have +been extreme. This Turlington bottle, however, affords one of the few +cases on record wherein such a medicine has been felt to possess a +postmortem utility.[103] + + [103] Wedel and Griffenhagen, _op. cit._ (footnote 54). + +Fur traders were still using old English patent medicines at +mid-century. Four dozen bottles of Turlington's Balsam were included in +an "Inventory of Stock the property of Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Co. +U[pper], M[issouri]. On hand at Fort Benton 4th May 1851...."[104] In +the very same year, out in the new State of California, one of the +early San Francisco papers listed Stoughton's Bitters as among the +merchandise for sale at a general store.[105] + + [104] A. McDonnell, _Contributions to the Historical Society of + Montana_, 1941, vol. 10, pp. 202, 217. + + [105] _California Daily Courier_, San Francisco, April 25, 1851. + +Newspaper advertising of the English proprietaries--even the mere +listing so common during the late colonial years--became very rare +after the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy pamphlet was issued. +Apothecary George J. Fischer of Frederick, Maryland, might mention +seven of the old familiar names in 1837,[106] and another druggist in +the same city might present a shorter list in 1844,[107] but such +advertising was largely gratuitous. Since the English patent medicines +had become every druggist's property, people who felt the need of such +dosage would expect every druggist to have them in stock. There was no +more need to advertise them than there was to advertise laudanum or +leeches or castor oil. Even the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1837 +took judicial cognizance of the fact that the old English patent +medicine names had acquired a generic meaning descriptive of a general +class of medicines, names which everyone was free to use and no one +could monopolize.[108] + + [106] _Political Examiner_, Frederick, Maryland, April 19, 1837. + + [107] _Frederick Examiner_, Frederick, Maryland, January 31, + 1844. + + [108] _Massachusetts Supreme Court_, Thomson vs. Winchester, 19 + Pick (Mass.), p. 214, March 1837. + +As the years went by, and as advertising did not keep the names of the +old English medicines before the eyes of customers, it is a safe +assumption that their use declined. Losing their original proprietary +status, they were playing a different role. New American proprietaries +had stolen the appeal and usurped the function which Bateman's Drops +and Turlington's Balsam had possessed in 18th-century London and Boston +and Williamsburg. As part of the cultural nationalism that had +accompanied the Revolution, American brands of nostrums had come upon +the scene, promoted with all the vigor and cleverness once bestowed in +English but not in colonial American advertising upon Dalby's +Carminative and others of its kind. While these English names retreated +from American advertising during the 19th century, vast blocks of space +in the ever-larger newspapers were devoted to extolling the merits of +Dyott's Patent Itch Ointment, Swaim's Panacea, and Brandreth's Pills. +More and more Americans were learning how to read, as free public +education spread. Persuaded by the frightening symptoms and the +glorious promises, citizens with a bent toward self-dosage flocked to +buy the American brands. Druggists and general stores stocked them and +made fine profits.[109] While bottles of British Oil sold two for a +quarter in 1885 Wisconsin, one bottle of Jayne's Expectorant retailed +for a dollar.[110] It is no wonder that, although the old English names +continue to appear in the mid-19th-century and later druggists' +catalogs and price currents,[111] they are muscled aside by the +multitude of brash American nostrums. Many of the late 19th century +listings continued to follow the procedure set early in the century of +specifying two grades of the various patent medicines, _i.e._, +"English" and "American," "genuine" and "imitation," "U.S." and +"stamped." American manufactories specializing in pharmaceutical +glassware continued to offer the various English patent medicine +bottles until the close of the century.[112] + + [109] James Harvey Young, "Patent medicines: the early + post-frontier phase," _Journal of the Illinois State Historical + Society_, Autumn 1953, vol. 46, pp. 254-264. + + [110] Cody and Johnson Drug Co., _op. cit._ (footnote 97). + + [111] Van Schaack, Stevenson & Reid, _Annual prices current_, + Chicago, 1875; Morrison, Plummer & Co., _Price current of drugs, + chemicals, oils, glassware, patent medicines, druggists sundries + ..._, Chicago, 1880. + + [112] Hagerty Bros. & Co., _Catalogue of Druggists' glassware, + sundries, fancy goods, etc._, New York, 1879; Whitall, Tatum & + Co., _Annual price list_, Millville, New Jersey, 1898. + +[Illustration: Figure 13.--OPODELDOC BOTTLE from the collection of Mrs. +Leo F. Redden, Kenmore, New York. (_Smithsonian photo 44201-E._)] + +In a thesaurus published in 1899, Godfrey's, Bateman's, Turlington's, +and other of the old English patent remedies were termed "extinct +patents."[113] The adjective referred to the status of the patent, not +the condition of the medicines. If less prominent than in the olden +days, the medicines were still alive. The first edition of the +_National Formulary_, published in 1888, had cited the old English +names as synonyms for official preparations in four cases, Dalby's, +Bateman's, Godfrey's and Turlington's. + + [113] Emil Hiss, _Thesaurus of proprietary preparations and + pharmaceutical specialties_, Chicago, 1899, p. 12. + +[Illustration: Figure 14.--OPODELDOC BOTTLE as illustrated in the 1879 +Catalog of Hagerty Bros., New York City, New York.] + +Thus as the present century opened, the old English patent medicines +were still being sold. City druggists were dispensing them over their +counters, and the peddler's wagon carried them to remote rural +regions.[114] But the medical scene was changing rapidly. Improvements +in medical science, stemming in part from the establishment of the germ +theory of disease, were providing a better yardstick against which to +measure the therapeutic efficiency of proprietary remedies. Medical +ethics were likewise advancing, and the occasional critic among the +ranks of physicians was being joined by scores of his fellow +practitioners in lambasting the brazen effrontery of the hundreds of +American cure-alls which advertised from newspaper and roadside sign. +Journalists joined doctors in condemning nostrums. Samuel Hopkins Adams +in particular, writing "The Great American Fraud" series for _Collier's +Weekly_, frightened and aroused the American public with his exposure +of cheap whiskey posing as consumption cures and soothing syrups filled +with opium. Then came a revolution in public policy. After a long and +frustrating legislative prelude, Congress in June of 1906 passed, and +President Theodore Roosevelt signed, the first Pure Food and Drugs Act. +The law contained clauses aimed at curtailing the worst features of the +patent medicine evil. + + [114] Robert B. Nixon, Jr., _Corner druggist_, New York, 1941, + p. 68. + + +The Patent Medicines In The 20th Century + +Although the old English patent medicines had not been the target at +which disturbed physicians and "muck-raking" journalists had taken aim, +these ancient remedies were governed by provisions of the new law. In +November 1906 the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, +in charge of administering the new federal statute, received a letter +from a wholesale druggist in Evansville, Indiana. One of his stocks in +trade, the druggist wrote, was a remedy called Godfrey's Cordial. He +realized that the Pure Food and Drugs Act had something to do with the +labeling of medicines containing opium, as Godfrey's did, and he wanted +to know from the Bureau just what was required of him.[115] Many +manufacturing druggists and producers of medicine were equally anxious +to learn how the law would affect them. The editors of a trade paper, +the _American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record_, issued warnings and +gave advice. It was still the custom, they noted, to wrap bottles of +ancient patent medicines, like Godfrey's Cordial and Turlington's +Balsam, in facsimiles of the original circulars, on which were printed +extravagant claims and fabulous certificates of cures that dated back +some two hundred years. The new law was not going to permit the +continuation of such 18th-century practices. Statements on the label +"false or misleading in any particular" were banned.[116] + + [115] Letter from Charles Leich & Co. to Harvey Washington Wiley, + Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, November 2, 1906. + Manuscript original in Record Group 97, National Archives, + Washington, D.C. + + [116] _American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record_, 1906, vol. + 49, pp. 343-344. + +A few manufacturers, as the years went by, fell afoul of this and other +provisions of the law. In 1918 a Reading, Pennsylvania, firm entered a +plea of guilty and received a fifty dollar fine for putting on the +market an adulterated and misbranded version of Dr. Bateman's Pectoral +Drops.[117] The law required that all medicines sold under a name +recognized in the _United States pharmacopoeia_ or the _National +formulary_, and Bateman's was included in the latter, must not differ +from the standard of strength, quality, or purity as established by +these volumes. Yet the Bateman Drops produced in Reading, the +government charged, fell short. They contained only 27.8 percent of the +alcohol and less than a tenth of the morphine that they should have +had. While short on active ingredients, the Drops were long on claims. +The wrapper boasted that the medicine was "effective as a remedy for +all fluxes, spitting of blood, agues, measles, colds, coughs, and to +put off the most violent fever; as a treatment, remedy, and cure for +stone and gravel in the kidneys, bladder, and urethra, shortness of +breath, straightness of the breast; and to rekindle the most natural +heat in the bodies by which they restore the languishing to perfect +health." Okell and Dicey had scarcely promised more. By 20th-century +standards, the government asserted, these claims were false and +fraudulent. + + [117] Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, Notices of + Judgment under the Food and Drugs Act, Notice of Judgment 6222, + United States vs. Pabst Pure Extract Co., 1919. + +Other manufacturers sold Bateman's Drops without running afoul of the +law. In 1925, ninety-nine years after the Philadelphia College of +Pharmacy pamphlet was printed, one North Carolina firm was persuaded +that it still was relevant to tell potential customers, in a handbill, +that its Drops were being made in strict conformity with the College +formula.[118] For Compound Tincture of Opium and Gambir Compound, +however, most manufacturers chose to follow the _National formulary_ +specifications, which remained official until 1936. + + [118] Original handbill, distributed by Standard Drug Co., + Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1925, preserved in the files of + the Bureau of Investigation, American Medical Association, + Chicago, Ill. + +Another old English patent medicine against which the Department of +Agriculture was forced to take action was Hooper's Female Pills. +Between 1919 and 1923, government agents seized a great many shipments +of this ancient remedy in versions put out by three Philadelphia +concerns.[119] Some of the packages bore red seals, others green seals, +and still others black, but the labeling of all claimed them to be "a +safe and sovereign remedy in female complaints." This theme was +expanded in considerable detail and there was an 18th-century ring to +the promise that the pills would work a sure cure "in all +hypochondriac, hysterick or vapourish disorders." No pill made +essentially of aloes and ferrous sulphate, said the government experts, +could do these things. Nor did the manufacturers, in court, seek to say +otherwise. Whether the seals were green or red, whether the packages +were seized in Washington or Worcester, the result was the same. No +party appeared in court to claim the pills, and they were condemned and +destroyed. + + [119] Multiple seizures were made of products shipped by the + Horace B. Taylor Co., Fore & Co., and the American Synthetic Co. + The quotations are from Notice of Judgment 8868; see also 8881, + 8914, 8936, 8956, 8974, 9134, 9147, 9203, 9510, 9586, 9785, + 10203, 10204, 10629, 11519, 11669. + +In one of the last actions under the 1906 law, a case concluded in +1940, after the first federal statute had been superseded by a more +rigorous one enacted in 1938, two of the old English patent medicines +encountered trouble.[120] They were British Oil and Dalby's +Carminative, as prepared by the South Carolina branch of a large +pharmaceutical manufacturing concern. + + [120] Federal Security Agency, Food and Drug Administration, + Notice of Judgment 31134, United States vs. McKesson and Robbins, + Inc., Murray Division, 1942. + +According to the label, the British Oil was made in conformity with the +Philadelphia College of Pharmacy formula given in an outdated edition +of the _United States dispensatory_. But instead of containing a proper +amount of linseed oil, if indeed it contained any, the medicine was +made with cottonseed oil, an ingredient not mentioned in the +Dispensatory. Therefore, the government charged, the Oil was +adulterated, under that provision of the law requiring a medicine to +maintain the strength and purity of any standard it professed to +follow. More than that, the labeling contravened the law since it +represented the remedy as an effective treatment for various swellings, +inflammations, fresh wounds, earaches, shortnesses of breath, and +ulcers. + +Dalby's Carminative was merely misbranded, but that was bad enough. Its +label suggested that it be used especially "For Infants Afflicted With +Wind, Watery Gripes, Fluxes and Other Disorders of the Stomach and +Bowels," although it would aid adults as well. The impression that this +remedy was capable of curing such afflictions, the government charged, +was false and fraudulent. Moreover, since the Carminative contained +opium, it was not a safe medicine when given according to the dosage +directions in a circular accompanying the bottle. For these and several +other violations of the law, the defending company, which did not +contest the case, was fined a hundred dollars. + +Throughout the 19th century, occasional criticism of the old English +patent medicines had been made in the lay press. One novel[121] +describes a physician who comments on the use of Dalby's Carminative +for babies: "Don't, for pity's sake, vitiate and torment your poor +little angel's stomach, so new to the atrocities of this world, with +drugs. These mixers of baby medicines ought to be fed nothing but their +own nostrums. That would put a stop to their inventions of the +adversary." + + [121] John William De Forest, _Miss Ravenel's conversion from + secession to loyalty_, New York, 1867. + +Opium had been lauded in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the old +English proprietaries began, as a superior cordial which could moderate +most illnesses and even cure some. "Medicine would be a one-armed man +if it did not possess this remedy." So had stated the noted English +physician, Thomas Sydenham.[122] But the 20th century had grown to fear +this powerful narcotic, especially in remedies for children. This point +of view, illustrated in the governmental action concerning Dalby's +Carminative, was also reflected in medical comment about Godfrey's +Cordial. During 1912, a Missouri physician described the death of a +baby who had been given this medicine for a week.[123] The symptoms +were those of opium poisoning. Deploring the naming of this "dangerous +mixture" a "cordial," since the average person thought of a cordial as +beneficial, the doctor hoped that the formula might be omitted from the +next edition of the _National formulary_. This did not happen, for the +recipe hung on until 1926. The Harrison Narcotic Act, enacted in 1914 +as a Federal measure to restrict the distribution of narcotics,[124] +failed to restrict the sale of many opium-bearing compounds like +Godfrey's Cordial. In 1931, a Tennessee resident complained to the +medical journal _Hygeia_ that this medication was "sold in general +stores and drug stores here without prescription and is given to +babies." To this, the journal replied that the situation was "little +short of criminal."[125] The charge leveled against his competitors by +one of the first producers of Godfrey's Cordial two centuries earlier +(see page 158) may well have proved a prophecy broad enough to cover +the whole history of this potent nostrum. "... Many Men, Women, and +especially Infants," he said, "may fall as Victims, whose Slain may +exceed Herod's Cruelty...." + + [122] Charles H. LaWall, _The curious lore of drugs and medicines + (Four thousand years of pharmacy)_, Garden City, New York, 1927, + p. 281. + + [123] W. B. Sissons, "Poisoning from Godfrey's Cordial," _Journal + of the American Medical Association_, March 2, 1912, vol. 58, p. + 650. + + [124] Edward Kremers and George Urdang, _History of pharmacy_, + Philadelphia, 1951, pp. 170, 278. + + [125] "Godfrey's Cordial," _Hygeia_, October 1931, vol. 9, p. + 1050. + +[Illustration: Figure 15.--TURLINGTON'S BALSAM OF LIFE bottles as +pictured in a brochure dated 1755-1757, preserved in the Pennsylvania +Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pa. According to Turlington, the +bottle was adopted in 1754 "to prevent the villainy of some persons +who, buying up my empty bottles, have basely and wickedly put therein a +vile spurious counterfeit sort."] + +For those who persist in using the formulas of the early English patent +medicines, recipes are still available. Turlington's Balsam remains +as an unofficial synonym of U.S.P. Compound Tincture of Benzoin. +Concerning its efficacy, the _United States dispensatory_[126] states: +"The tincture is occasionally employed internally as a stimulating +expectorant in chronic bronchitis. More frequently it is used as an +inhalent ... It has also been recommended in chronic dysentery ... but +is of doubtful utility." + + [126] _The dispensatory of the United States of America_, 25th + ed., Philadelphia, 1955, p. 158. + +A formula for Godfrey's Cordial, under the title of Mixture of Opium +and Sassafras, is still carried in the _Pharmaceutical recipe +book_.[127] _Remington's practice of pharmacy_[128] retains a formula +for Dalby's Carminative under the former _National formulary_ title of +Carminative Mixture. + + [127] _The Pharmaceutical recipe book_, 2nd ed., American + Pharmaceutical Association, 1936, p. 121. + + [128] Eric W. Martin and E. Fullerton Cook, editors, _Remington's + practice of pharmacy_, 11th ed., Easton, Pennsylvania, 1956, p. + 286. + +In the nation of their origin, the continuing interest in the ancient +proprietaries seems somewhat more lively than in America. The 1953 +edition of _Pharmaceutical formulas_, published by the London journal +_The Chemist and Druggist_, includes formulas for eight of the ten old +patent medicines described in this study. This compendium, indeed, +lists not one, but three different recipes for British Oil, and the +formulas by which Dalby's Carminative may be compounded run on to a +total of eight. Two lineal descendents of 18th-century firms which took +the lead in exporting to America still manufacture remedies made so +long ago by their predecessors. May, Roberts & Co., Ltd., of London, +successors to the Newbery interests, continues to market Hooper's +Female Pills, whereas W. Sutton & Co. (Druggists' Sundries), London, +Ltd., of Enfield, in Middlesex, successors to Dicey & Co. at Bow +Churchyard, currently sells Bateman's Pectoral Drops.[129] + + [129] Letter from Owen H. Waller, editor of _The Chemist and + Druggist_, to George Griffenhagen, January 15, 1957. + +In America, however, the impact of the old English patent medicines has +been largely absorbed and forgotten. During the past twenty years a +revolution in medical therapy has taken place. Most of the drugs in use +today were unknown a quarter of a century ago. Some of the newer drugs +can really perform certain of the healing miracles claimed by their +pretentious proprietors for the old English patent medicines. + +A more recent import from Britain, penicillin, may prove to have an +even longer life on these shores than did Turlington's Balsam or +Bateman's Drops. Still, two hundred years is a long time. Despite the +fact that these early English patent medicines are nearly forgotten by +the public today, their American career is none the less worth tracing. +It reflects aspects not only of medical and pharmaceutical history, but +of colonial dependence, cultural nationalism, industrial development, +and popular psychology. It reveals how desperate man has been when +faced with the terrors of disease, how he has purchased the packaged +promises offered by the sincere but deluded as well as by the +charlatan. It shows how science and law have combined to offer man some +safeguards against deception in his pursuit of health. + +The time seems ripe to write the epitaph of the old English patent +medicines in America. That they are now a chapter of history is a token +of medical progress for mankind. + +[Illustration: Figure 16.--TURLINGTON'S BALSAM OF LIFE BOTTLE (all four +sides) found in an Indian grave at Mobridge, South Dakota; now +preserved in the U.S. National Museum. (_Cat. No. 32462, Archeol.; +Smithsonian photo 42936-A._)] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old English Patent Medicines in America, by +George B. Griffenhagen and James Harvey Young + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES *** + +***** This file should be named 30162.txt or 30162.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/1/6/30162/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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