Old English Patent Medicines in America Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 G.o.dfrey'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 a.s.sumption 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 Gla.s.s of Water into the Nature and Quality of a.s.ses 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 a.s.serted 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 s.h.i.+p 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 gla.s.s 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]. Ma.n.u.script 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 a.s.sociation_, 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 c.o.c.ky a.s.sertions of the quack bills.

Pamphlet warfare among physicians about their conflicting theories achieved an acrimony not surpa.s.sed by the competing advertisers of Stoughton's Elixir. The aristocratic pract.i.tioners 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 ma.s.ses 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. "Pract.i.tioners are laureated gratis with a t.i.tle 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 a.s.sorted 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 t.i.tle 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Medical Society_ of 1808). Only two years after Turlington obtained his "Balsam of Life" patent, the _Pharmacopoeia Londinensis_ introduced a recipe under the t.i.tle of "Balsamum Traumatic.u.m" 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_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 6.--BOTTLES OF BATEMAN'S PECTORAL DROPS, 19th century (left) and early 20th century (right), from the Samuel Aker, David and George Ka.s.s 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 a.s.sociated 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 Hamps.h.i.+re, 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. G.o.dfrey'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 G.o.dfrey'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 advertis.e.m.e.nt.[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 f.l.a.n.g.ed mouth. Flat base."[60]

[55] Sherman, _op. cit._ (footnote 53).

[56] Schackne, _op. cit._ (footnote 53).

[57] George S. and Helen McKearin, _American gla.s.s_, New York, 1941.

[58] _Daily Advertiser_, London, October 29, 1743.

[59] George Griffenhagen, "Stodgy as a Stoughton bottle,"

_Journal of the American Pharmaceutical a.s.sociation, 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 Kitch.e.l.l 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 ill.u.s.tration 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