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 exposé 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.