Pil. ex Opio, and when first authorised in the P.L., 1746, Pil.
Saponacea, was adapted from a famous nostrum long sold as Matthews’s
Pills, and as Starkey’s Pills. Starkey, a qualified physician, was
understood to have devised the process, and Matthews was the vendor
in whose name they were sold. But a little before his death in 1665
Starkey told Dr. George Wilson that the formula he had sold to
Matthews was not his genuine and best process. In both, however, the
characteristic ingredient was “soap of tartar,” which it was claimed
added an aperient quality to the opium which made it safe to give
in asthmas and other complaints when opium alone was objectionable.
The soap of tartar was made by melting together in a crucible equal
parts of cream of tartar and saltpetre, the compound being afterwards
crystallised and powdered, and with it was incorporated 4 oz. of
turpentine to each pound of the resulting salt. Matthews’s Pills
were made from 4 oz. each of extract of opium, black hellebore, soap
of tartar, and liquorice, with 1 oz. of saffron. Starkey’s deathbed
formula ordered 4 oz. of extract of opium, 2 oz. each of nutmeg and
mineral bezoar (calx of antimony), saffron and snake root, of each
1 oz., soap of tartar 8 oz., oil of sassafras ½ oz., tincture of
antimony, 2 oz. These pills were also known as pilulæ pacificæ.
DECOCTIONS OF SARSAPARILLA.
Sarsaparilla, guaiacum, sassafras, and mezereon enjoyed fitful periods
of fame in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
especially for the treatment of syphilis. From the time of their
introduction the Paracelsists denounced these remedies, and Paracelsus
himself was especially sarcastic about “the wooden doctors,” as he
called those who relied on these woods. Still they were employed to
an immense extent. A number of remedies were made from them, generally
from a combination of them. One of these called the Lisbon Diet Drink
became very popular in the eighteenth century. This was taken not only
in syphilitic cases, but as an antirheumatic and generally purifying
medicine. It was said to contain antimony, and the following was
reputed to be a correct imitation of it:--Sarsaparilla, 90, red sandal,
90, yellow sandal, 90, rose root, 30, guaiacum wood, 30, sassafras,
30, mezereon bark, 15, sulphide of antimony, 60, boiling water, 3600.
Infuse twelve hours and boil down to half, adding near the end of the
boiling fifteen parts of liquorice. An English Dr. Leake wrote a book
about this decoction in 1787, describing what he had seen of its good
effects in the cure of venereal diseases, scurvy, and other stubborn
chronic complaints. He had been to Lisbon, and intimated that he had
obtained the correct formula, but he did not give it. He had, however,
for some time made it, and would supply it in a concentrated form.
A compound decoction of sarsaparilla was introduced into the London
Pharmacopœia of 1788, and the Liquor Sarsæ Co. Conc. of the B.P. is the
direct descendant of that preparation.
Sirop de Cuisinier has long been a popular preparation of sarsaparilla
in France, and has been officially recognised by the Codex for a
century. A compound syrup of sarsaparilla was introduced into the
United States Pharmacopœia in 1820 expressly as an imitation of
the French syrup. The original Sirop de Cuisinier was evidently a
proprietary article, but I have not been able to trace its history.
The Codex formula prescribes sarsaparilla, with flowers of borage and
white roses, senna, and aniseed, made into a syrup with honey, sugar,
and water. The U.S.P. substituted liquorice for the borage. It has
often been employed as a vehicle for corrosive sublimate, but a number
of experiments have shown that unless this mixture is quite fresh the
sublimate will be reduced to calomel.
SEIDLITZ POWDERS
are a well known misnomer. Fr. Hoffmann discovered the Seidlitz spring
in 1724, and found that it owed its medicinal effect to sulphate of
magnesia with some sulphate of soda. Seidlitz or Sedlitz is a small
town near Seidschutz in northern Bohemia. There is evidence that at one
time sulphate of magnesia was obtained commercially from this spring
as it was from the Epsom water, and in this country then, and in some
Continental countries still, Seidlitz salt was and is a synonym for
sulphate of magnesia. In Christison’s Dispensatory it was suggested
that the name as applied to the powders which have so long been known
in Great Britain was a corruption of Seignette’s powders. Other writers
suggested that the name may have resulted from a confusion between
Seidlitz and Selters. The most probable explanation, however, was
given in _The Chemist and Druggist_ of February 23 and March
2, 1901, from which it appeared that Thomas Field Savory, of Bond
Street, London, took out a patent in 1815 for “the combination of
a neutral salt or powder which possesses all the properties of the
medicinal spring in Germany under the name of the Seidlitz powders.”
The specification was for the production of three powders, namely,
(1) tartrated soda, (2) bicarbonate of soda, and (3) tartaric acid,
but these chemicals were not designated by their usual names, but
old-fashioned methods of producing them were set forth. Then it was
stated that ʒij of No. 1, ℈ij of No. 2, and ℈ij of No. 3 were to be
taken and mixed in the manner so familiar to us. In 1823 Mr. Savory
brought an action against Messrs. Price & Son, of 4, Leadenhall Street,
for alleged infringement of his patent, which, however, the Court
held to be invalid in consequence of the elaborate directions in the
specification for the production of the several ingredients, all of
which were chemicals sold in all chemists’ shops. At the same trial
it seems to have been admitted that the combination was both new and
useful. There is no record of any objection to the title.
In 1778 Bergmann published a treatise on artificial mineral waters,
giving analyses of the most popular, and recommending the use of the
factitious waters as preferable to the natural ones. About the same
time a French pharmacien, named Vanel, introduced a powder with which
to make the favourite Eau de Seltz, or Selters water. Apparently
the salts for making mineral waters acquired a certain degree of
popularity, and it is likely that Seidlitz salt was among them. Nothing
would make this palatable, and Mr. Savory’s idea of substituting a
pleasant draught for a nauseous one was at least a commercial success.
TURNER’S CERATE.
Daniel Turner, M.D., the inventor of Turner’s Cerate, which appeared
in several Pharmacopœias as Ceratum Calaminæ, was at first a surgeon
in London, but was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians
in 1711, and practised in Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate. In William
Munk’s Roll of the Royal College of Physicians an opinion of him is
quoted that he was too fond of displaying his talents upon paper; the
result being that he published many volumes which are now forgotten.
(A commentary which might be made on most other authors.) It is also
said of him that his cases were not stated in the most delicate terms,
nor was politeness among his excellences. As several of his works
were about syphilis it may be that his style was merely perspicuous.
He wrote comments on Dover’s “Ancient Physician” and on Mr. Ward’s
Pill and Drop. His biographer, however, quotes from him with approval
a pious exhortation to physicians not to be ashamed to avow their
religious principles even if they kept their politics to themselves.
“It can be no disgrace,” he wrote, “for a physician who owns himself
to be no more than Nature’s minister to acknowledge himself also the
servant of Nature’s Master.”
Turner’s original formula for his Ceratum de Lapide Calaminari was to
melt together 3½ lb. of freshly made unsalted butter, 3½ lb. of the
best yellow wax, and 4 lb. of pure and newly-prepared olive oil. These
when melted to be strained through a linen cloth, and while cooling,
3 lb. 10 oz. of the best calamine stone, “sufficiently triturated
and passed through a Sierce,” to be sprinkled into the mixture with
constant stirring till it sets.
Turner’s comments on this cerate are worth quoting, because they
incidentally illustrate the pharmacy of the period. He says:--
“As I have had ample experience of this cerate, I may be allow’d,
I hope, to judge of its singular properties and good effects in
all cutaneous ulcerations and excoriations either from scalding,
burning, or fretting of the said parts by means of salt, acrid, or
sharp humours; upon which accounts, not straining a tittle beyond
its deserved euology, I am bold to affirm it will do more in all
these superficial hurts of the body than either Unguentum Tutiae,
Diapompholyx, Nutritum, Desiccativum Rubrum, Rosatum, or all the
epuletic medicines now in use; and for which cause I can, for the
public benefit, sincerely recommend it to all the professors of the
art; and do wish that the Apothecaries would keep it made up in their
shops, to deliver, at a suitable price, to indigent or poor people,
instead of their ridiculous Locatellus’s Balsam, and other improper
medicines which they call for ignorantly to heal their skin-deep
maladies. I know the medicine has been imitated by several, and I have
seen somewhat like it in some gentlemen’s salvatories; but I know not
more than two persons I ever communicated it to, as I was wont to
prepare it for my own use. The medicine thus prepared is of a good
consistence and a true cerate, serving both for pledget or plaister,
neither sticking troublesomely, nor running off or about by the heat
of the parts; but keeping its body and performing things incredible.
Whoever thinks fit to take it into practice will never repent it,
nor perhaps (when he has experienced it as I have done) think I have
said too much in its Commendation. This is the medicine I have so
often taken notice of, which, that I might contribute my mite to the
Surgeon’s Treasure of Medicine, I here have publish’d, and leave it to
take its fate.”
The other preparations to which Dr. Turner refers as being at that
time in public demand may be briefly noted. Tutty was another impure
oxide of zinc generally containing some oxide of lead or copper. It
was obtained from the flues of smelting furnaces where zinc ores were
purified. Tutty was so called from an Arabic or Persian name given
to zinc, or to a zinc and tin bronze imported from China and used as
a gong metal by the Chinese. The tutty ointment was properly made up
with viper’s fat. Pompholyx was one of the names given to oxide of
zinc prepared by combustion. It was a Greek word meaning a bubble in
melted metal, from pomphos, a blister. Unguentum Diapompholyx contained
besides the flowers of zinc, white lead, the juice of nightshade
berries, and frankincense. Unguentum Nutritum was an acetate of lead
ointment. Unguentum Desiccativum Rubrum was compounded from litharge,
bole armeniac, calamine, and camphor. Unguentum Rosatum was similar to
cold cream.
XXI
NOTED NOSTRUMS
From powerful causes spring the empiric’s gains,
Man’s love of life, his weakness, and his pains;
These first induce him the vile trash to try,
Then lend his name that other men may buy.
CRABBE:--_The Borough_.
PATENT MEDICINES.
In the early days of English commerce monopolies were granted by the
sovereigns at their own pleasure, and often for their personal profit.
Queen Elizabeth so largely abused her power in this direction that
towards the end of her reign the discontent of her subjects compelled
her to promise she would offend no more: and her successor, James I,
gave a similar undertaking. The abuse, however, was continued until
the Statute of Monopolies, passed in 1624, regulated all such grants,
placing the power in the hands of Parliament, and limiting the period
of privilege to fourteen years.
For the first century or thereabout of the administration of this
Act, specifications of processes or formulas were not a condition of
the patent. The idea was the introduction into the country of new
industries, and it was supposed that the artificers who would have
to be employed in any such industries would certainly acquire such
necessary skill and knowledge about any new manufacture as would
prevent any perpetuation of the monopoly. It was during the reign of
Queen Anne that the law officers began to require that specifications
should be filed before letters patent were issued. But the condition
was not by any means uniformly or intelligently insisted upon, as will
be seen immediately in the case of certain patented medicines.
The term “patent medicines,” as now popularly used, means generally
secret medicines, and the meaning is therefore in exact contradiction
to the expression. Truthfully to declare the composition of many
of these proprietary compounds would ruin their sale. Not that the
ingredients are often improper or injurious; this rarely occurs; but
because the success of these remedies depends in most instances rather
on the mystery with which the makers can surround them than on their
exceptional merit.
But some old medicines which became popular, including a few the
reputation of which lives to this day, were actually patented. The
first compound medicine for which a patent was granted under the Act
of 1624 was No. 388, and was dated October 22, 1711. It was granted
to Timothy Byfield for his sal oleosum volatile, “which by abundant
experience hath been found very helpfull and beneficiall as well in
uses medicinall as others.” No particulars of the ingredients or method
of manufacture are given.
Stoughton’s “great cordial elixir” comes next, in 1712, and there is
nothing more in the proprietary medicine line until 1722, when a patent
for Robert Eaton’s Styptick medicine appears. In that year a curious
patent was granted to George Sinclair for “raising and cultivating the
plants which are commonly called or do produce the balsam of tolu,
Peru, and capair, dragon’s blood, coloquintida, scamony, rhubarb,
jalap, ipecacuanha (and others named), and curing the insect commonly
called cochenele and cultivating the plant which they feed and live
upon.” No particulars of the inventor’s ideas are given.
Benjamin Okell’s patent for Dr. Bateman’s pectoral drops, stated to
act by moderate sweat and urine, and to be useful in rheumatism,
afflictions of the stone, gravel, agues, and hysterics, was dated March
31, 1726, and was granted to him in recognition of the long study,
application, and great expense he had been put to in finding out this
remedy and bringing it to perfection. He furnished no particulars.
Bateman’s drops probably always depended on opium for its efficacy, and
in time various formulas for a medicine under that name for coughs came
to be adopted. In 1833 the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy published
the following formula “to represent Bateman’s Pectoral Drops because of
its general use, and to secure uniformity.” They said the preparation
was then being sold in strengths varying from 7½ to 100 grains to the
pint. The formula prescribed was: Diluted alcohol, 4 gallons; red
sanders, rasped, 2 oz. Digest for 24 hours, filter, add opium in powder
2 oz., catechu in powder 2 oz., camphor 2 oz., oil of anise ½ oz.
Digest for ten days.
The patent for John Hooper’s Female Pills, granted in 1743 to John
Hooper, apothecary and man midwife of Reading, contains a copy of an
affidavit made by the patentee, who, being “obliged to give under
his hand and seal a particular description of his invention,” came
before the King in Chancery, and satisfied the royal representative
with a specification declaring that his medicine was “compounded
as followeth:--Of the best purging stomatick and anti-hysterick
ingredients, duly proportioned and made into a powder, and beat into
a mass for pills with sufficient quantity of a strong infusion of the
above-mentioned ingredients; and when the same is made into pills about
the bigness of a small pea, two or three are to be given to persons
from 7 years of age to 15, and three or four from 15 years of age to 70
every other night.” Hooper must have been a humorist.
Betton’s British oils “for the cure of rheumatic and scorbutic and
other cases” had been patented in 1742. The oil was “extracted from the
black, pitchy, flinty roch or rock lying immediately over the coal in
coal mines.” This was reduced to powder and then subjected to heat in a
closed furnace, by which means the oil was obtained.
The patent for Dr. James’s fever powder (1747) is referred to at length
elsewhere. It is agreed that the preparation could not be produced by
the process detailed; but, according to Lord Mansfield, it was also
defective in another respect. In a judgment given by that eminent
authority in 1778 (in the case of Liardet v. Johnson) he illustrated
an argument he was using by a reference to Dr. James’s patent, “in
the specification of which,” he said, “he has mentioned the articles
only of which those powders were composed, and omitted the proportion
or quantity.” Consequently Lord Mansfield added, “Dr. James never
durst bring an action for infringement, and it was certainly wise in
him not to do so, for no patent could stand on such a specification.”
His lordship went on to enlarge on the extreme importance of exact
quantities in the exact formulas for medicines.
Dr. James also patented his “analeptic pills” in 1774. They were to be
compounded of equal parts of pil. rufi, gum ammoniacum, and his own
fever powder. The two first named ingredients were to be “placed in
a large cave underground furnished with the conductors of electrical
fire” by which they were to be dissolved. The powder was then to be
added and the pills to be made up with gum arabic.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the patents for compounded
medicines become more numerous, but they are generally of no present
interest. The names of a very few have come down to our day. Ann
Pike’s itch ointment (patented 1760) may be noticed. To prepare this,
pomatum and calomel were first mixed and allowed to stand several days;
another ointment was made with hogs’ lard and Jesuit’s bark, and this
was likewise set aside for a few days. These two ointments were then
blended together, mercury added to them, and the mass stirred daily
for some time. Two other ointments were also made and combined like
the others, the ingredients of these being deer suet, turbith mineral,
lard, powdered tutty, flowers of brimstone, and wood soot.
In 1777 Robert Grubb patented a medicine called the Frier’s Drops,
“for the cure of the venereal disease, scurvy, rheumatism, stranguary
and gleets.” It contained calomel, antimony, guaiacum wood, balsam of
Peru, hemlock, sugar candy, oil of sassafras, tartaric acid, and gum
arabic, with spirit of wine. The particular interest of this is the
name which may have been the original of the Friar’s Balsam named in
the Medicine Stamp Act. The Friar’s Balsam known to us cannot be traced
as a proprietary medicine.
Gale’s Spa Elixir, patented 1782, is notable as a specimen of
condensed information. Its composition is thus described:--“R. fer.
q.l.; cor, anima., sp.vin. esse.tinc. anima: super:aq: nat:, sp.sal:
q.s.; dissolve, digest, correct, evaporate, and extract the elixir
S.A.” The abbreviated terms and the punctuation are copied from the
specification.
Nathaniel Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam was patented in 1785, Spilsbury’s
Anti-scorbutic Drops in 1792, Ching’s Worm Lozenges in 1796, and
Innocenza della Lena winds up the century with a formula conceived
quite on the lines of the pharmacy then departing. It was for “A
certain medicine called flogistical and fixed earth of Mars or
powder of Mars.” It is not stated what the medicine was for, but its
preparation was awe-inspiring. Mineral earth of iron, copper, crude
antimony, mineral salt, and urine were digested for a considerable
time in an unvarnished vessel, hermetically sealed, deep down in the
earth. Subsequently the mixture was exposed to the rays of the sun for
a period, more urine was added, and the interment and the exposure were
several times repeated.
Roche’s Embrocation for whooping-cough, patented in 1803, was declared
to be compounded of oil of elder, rose leaves, chamomile flowers, oil
of caraway, oil of rosemary, cochineal, and alkanet root. This remedy
is still popular, but it is understood to have a composition very
different from that specified.
Perkins’s Metallic Tractors were patented on March 10th, 1798. Benjamin
Douglas Perkins claimed to have discovered “an art of relieving and
curing a variety of aches, pains, and diseases in the human body,
by drawing over the parts affected or those contiguous thereto, in
certain directions, various pointed metals, which from the affinity
they have with the offending matter,” or from some other cause,
“extract, or draw out the same, and thus cure the patient.” The
metals used were combinations of copper, zinc, and gold; or of iron,
silver, and platinum. The tractors were invented by Elisha Perkins,
the father of Benjamin, who died at New York in 1799. The tractors
were united together like a pair of compasses, and one of the arms
was obtuse and the other pointed. They professed to apply galvanic
action to the relief and cure of pain and disease. Galvani’s report of
his experiments was only published about 1790, and not much earlier
Mesmer’s animal magnetism had excited marvellous interest in Paris.
Perkins’s Tractors had an enormous popularity for a time in England and
in Denmark, but nowhere else to any extent. Two Bath doctors, named
Falconer and Haygarth, professed to get as good results with tractors
made of wood, many patients of the Bath Hospital declaring that these
promptly relieved their pains. From these experiments it was argued
that the alleged cures were entirely due to the imagination of the
sufferers.
After 1800 medicinal compounds are only rarely patented. Of those known
to the present generation, Ford’s Balsam of Horehound appears in 1816,
Savory’s Seidlitz Powders were protected in 1815, Ridge’s Food, 1862,
and Page Woodcock’s Wind Pills, 1852. A patent was taken in 1853 by Sir
James Murray for aerating cod-liver oil with carbonic acid gas, and
William Brockedon’s patent for compressing drugs and blacklead, which
has borne fruit a thousandfold in these later days, was granted in
1843.
ANDERSON’S SCOTS PILLS.
These pills acquired extraordinary popularity, particularly in Scotland
and France, and to some extent in other countries, including England.
Either these pills or Singleton’s Eye Ointment is the proprietary
remedy still sold in this country with the longest history. It is
claimed that the ointment was invented some forty years earlier than
the pills, but it must be admitted that the records of the latter,
especially in their early days, are more exactly authenticated.
[Illustration: PATRICK ANDERSON, M.D.]
Dr. Patrick Anderson was a Scotch physician of considerable reputation
in London in the Stuart period. He is described on some of his books
as Physician to Charles I. In 1635 he published a treatise entitled as
follows:--“Grana Angelica; hoc est pilularum hujus nominis insignis
utilitas; quibus etiam accesserunt alia quaedam pancula de durioris
alvi incommodis propter materiam cognitionem, ac vice supplementi in
fine adjuncta.” He stated that he had obtained the formula for these
pills in Venice. After his death they were sold in Edinburgh by his
daughter Miss Katherine Anderson, and she by a deed registered in the
Commissary Court books of Edinburgh, the 16th December, 1686, declared
that she had communicated the secret to Thomas Weir, surgeon, in
Edinburgh, “and to no other person.”