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.