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/