Chapter 2

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.

English Patent Medicines Come to America

When the first English packaged medicine, patented or unpatented, came to the New World, cannot be told. Some 17th-century prospective colonist, setting forth to face the hazards of life in Jamestown or Baltimore or Boston, must have packed a box of Anderson's Scots Pills or a bottle of Daffy's Elixir to bring along, but no record to substantiate such an incident has been encountered. It would seem that the use of English packaged remedies in America was most infrequent before 1700. Samuel Lee, answering questions posed from England in 1690 about the status of medicine and pharmacy in Massachusetts, mentions no patent medicines.[25] Neither does the 1698 account book of the Salem apothecary, Bartholomew Brown.[26]

[25] George L. Kittredge, "Letters to Samuel Lee and Samuel Sewall relating to New England and the Indians," _Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Transactions_, 1913, vol. 14, pp. 142-186.

[26] Bartholomew Brown, Apothecary day book, Salem [1698]; manuscript original preserved in the Library of the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.

In the _Boston News-Letter_ for October 4, 1708, Nicholas Boone, at the Sign of the Bible, near the corner, of School-House-Lane, advertised for sale: "DAFFY'S Elixir Salutis, very good, at four shillings and sixpence _per_ half pint Bottle." This may well be the first printed reference in America to an English patent medicine, and it certainly is the first newspaper advertisement for a nostrum. Preceding the _News-Letter_ in colonial America, there had been only one paper, the _Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic_.[27] This journal had lasted but a single issue. Then its printer had returned to England, where he took up the career of a patent medicine promoter, vending "the only Angelical Pills against all Vapours, Hysterick Fits." The _News-Letter_ had begun with the issue of April 27, 1704, about 4 years before Boone's advertisement for Daffy's remedy made its appearance, but during that time, only one advertisement for anything at all in the medical field had appeared, and that was for a home-remedy book, _The English physician_, by Nicholas Culpeper, Doctor of Physick.[28] This volume was also for sale at Boone's shop.

[27] Frank L. Mott, _American journalism_, New York, 1941, pp. 9-10.

[28] _Boston News-Letter_, Boston, February 9, 1708.

Patent-medicine advertising in the _News-Letter_ prior to 1750 was infrequent. Apothecary Zabdiel Boylston, who a decade later was to earn a role of esteem in medical history by introducing the inoculation for smallpox, announced in 1711 that he would sell "the true Lockyers Pills."[29] This was an unpatented remedy first concocted half a century earlier by a "licensed physitian" in London. The next year Boylston repeated this appeal,[30] and in the same advertisement listed other wares of the same type. He had two varieties, Golden and Plain, of the Spirit of Scurvy-Grass; he had "The Bitter Stomach Drops," worm potions for children; and a wonderful multipurpose nostrum, "the Royal Honey Water, an Excellent Perfume, good against Deafness, and to Make Hair grow...." The antecedents of this regal liquid are unknown. Boylston also announced for sale "The Best [Daffy's] Elixir Salutis in Bottles, or by the Ounce." This is a provocative listing. It may mean merely that the apothecary would break a bottle to sell a dose of the Elixir, which was often the custom. But it also may suggest that Boylston was making the Elixir himself, or was having it prepared by a journeyman. This latter interpretation would place Boylston well at the head of a long parade of American imitators of the old English patent medicines.

[29] _Ibid._, March 12, 1711.

[30] _Ibid._, March 24, 1712.

Other such shipments of the packaged English remedies may have come to New England on the latest ships from London during the next several decades, but they got scant play in the advertising columns of the small 4-page _Boston News-Letter_. Another reference to "Doctor Anthony Daffey's Original Elixer Salutis" occurs in 1720.[31] Ten years later, Stoughton's Drops were announced for sale "by Public Vendue," along with feather beds, looking glasses, and leather breeches.[32] Nearly a decade more was to pass before Bateman's Pectoral Drops showed up in the midst of another general list, including cheese, and shoes, and stays.[33] Not until 1748 did an advertisement appear in which several of the old English nostrums rubbed shoulders with each other.[34] Then Silvester Gardiner, at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar, asserted that "by appointment of the Patentee" he was enabled to sell "Genuine British Oyl, _Bateman's_ Pectoral Drops, and _Hooper's_ Female Pills, and the True _Lockyer's_ Pills."

[31] _Ibid._, November 14, 1720.

[32] _Ibid._, March 12, 1730.

[33] _Ibid._, January 4, 1739.

[34] _Ibid._, November 14, 1748.

Although nearly a century old, Anderson's Scots Pills were not cited for sale in the pages of the _Boston News-Letter_ until August 23, 1750, two months after the much more recent Turlington's Balsam of Life first put in its appearance.[35] During the same year, the British confusion over British Oil was reflected in America. Boden's and Darby's variety preceded the Betton brand into the _News-Letter_ pages by a fortnight.[36] It was the latter, however, which was to win the day in Boston, for almost all subsequent advertising specified the Betton Oil. Godfrey's Cordial was first mentioned in 1761.[37] Thus, of the ten old English patent medicines which are the focus of the present study, eight had been advertised in the _Boston News-Letter_. The other two, Steer's Opodeldoc and Dalby's Carminative, did not reach the market before this colonial journal fell prey to the heightening tensions of early 1776.

[35] _Ibid._, June 7, 1750.

[36] _Ibid._, May 24, 1750.

[37] _Ibid._, December 31, 1761.

By the 1750's, the names of several old English nostrums were appearing fairly frequently in the advertising of colonial apothecaries, not only in Boston but in other colonial towns. In Williamsburg, for example, a steady increase occurs in the number of references and the length of the lists of the English patent medicines advertised in the _Virginia Gazette_ from their first mention into the early 1760's.[38] This journal--which later had competing issues by different editors--was launched in 1736, and the next year George Gilmer advised customers that, in addition to "all manner of Chymical and Galenical Medicines," he could furnish, at his old shop near the Governor's, "Bateman's Drops, Squires Elixir, Anderson's Pills."[39] The other remedies appeared in due time, Stoughton's and Daffy's Elixirs in 1745, Turlington's Balsam in 1746, Godfrey's Cordial in 1751, Hooper's Pills in 1752, and Betton's British Oil in 1770.

[38] Lester J. Cappon and Stella F. Duff, _Virginia Gazette index, 1736-1780_, Williamsburg, 1950, 2 vols.

[39] _Virginia Gazette_, Williamsburg, May 27, 1737.

A spot check of newspapers in Philadelphia and New York reveals a pattern quite similar. Residents of the middle colonies, like those to the north and the south, could buy the basic English brands, and it was during the 1750's that the notices of freshly-arrived supplies ceased to be rare in advertising columns and became a frequent occurrence. Thomas Preston, for example, announced to residents of Philadelphia in 1768 that he had just received a supply of Anderson's, Hooper's, Bateman's, Betton's, Daffy's, Stoughton's, Turlington's, and Godfrey's remedies.[40] Not only were these medicines for sale at apothecary shops, but they were sold by postmasters, goldsmiths, grocers, hair dressers, tailors, printers, booksellers, cork cutters, the post-rider between Philadelphia and Williamsburg, and by many colonial American physicians.

[40] _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Philadelphia, December 1, 1768.

It is a matter for comment that American newspaper advertising of the English packaged medicines was singularly drab. In the mother country, the proprietors or their heirs were faced with vigorous competition. It behooved them to sharpen up their adjectives and reach for their vitriol. In America the apothecary or merchant had no proprietary interest in any of the different brands of the imported medicines which were sold. Moreover, there was probably no great surplus of supply over demand in America as in Britain, so the task of selling the stock on hand was less difficult and required less vigorous promotion. Also, advertising space in the few American weeklies was more at a premium than in the more frequent and numerous English journals. With rare exceptions, therefore, the old English patent medicines were merely mentioned by name in American advertising. Seldom did one receive the individual attention accorded by Samuel Emlen to Godfrey's Cordial in Benjamin Franklin's _Pennsylvania Gazette_ for June 26, 1732. The ad ran like this:

"Dr. Godfrey's General Cordial. So universally approved of for the Cholick, and all Manners cf Pains in the Bowels, Fluxes, Fevers, Small-Pox, Measles, Rheumatism, Coughs, Colds, and Restlessness in Men, Women, and Children; and particularly for several Ailments incident to Child-bearing Women, and Relief of young Children in breeding their Teeth."

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 Godfrey'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 assumption 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 Glass of Water into the Nature and Quality of Asses 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 asserted 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 Washington 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 ship 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 glass 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]. Manuscript 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 Association_, 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 cocky assertions of the quack bills. Pamphlet warfare among physicians about their conflicting theories achieved an acrimony not surpassed by the competing advertisers of Stoughton's Elixir. The aristocratic practitioners 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 masses 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. "Practitioners are laureated gratis with a title 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 assorted 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.