Chapter II: Part 2

Such random assortments of prewar importations could hardly have met the American demand for the old English patent medicines created by a half century of use. Doubtless many embattled farmers had to confront their ailments without the accustomed English-made remedies. However, as early as the 1750's, at least two of the English patent medicines, Daffy's and Stoughton's Elixirs, were being compounded in the colonies and packaged in empty bottles shipped from England. Apothecary Carter of Williamsburg ordered sizable quantities of empty "Stoughton Vials" from 1752 through 1770, and occasionally ordered empty Daffy's bottles.[66] In 1774 apothecary Waldo of Salem noted the receipt from England of "1 Groce Stoughton Phials" and "1 Groce Daffy's Do."[67] Joseph Stansbury, who sold china and glass in Philadelphia, advertised "Daffy's Elixir Bottles" a week after the Declaration of Independence.[68] Stoughton's and Daffy's Elixirs, therefore, were being compounded by the American apothecaries during the Revolutionary War. Formulas for both preparations were official in the London and Edinburgh pharmacopoeias, as well as in unofficial formularies like Quincy's _Pharmacopoeias officinalis extemporanea_ of 1765. All these publications were used widely by American physicians and apothecaries.

[66] Carter, _op. cit._ (footnote 46).

[67] Waldo, _op. cit._ (footnote 65).

[68] _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Philadelphia, July 11, 1776.

It is not known how extensively, during the struggle for independence, this custom was adopted for English patent medicines other than Daffy's and Stoughton's. However, imitation of English patent medicines in America was to increase, and it contributed to the chaos that beset the nostrum field when the war was over and the original articles from England were once more available. And they were bought. An advertisement at a time when the fighting was over and peace negotiations were still under way indicated that the Baltimore post office had half a dozen of the familiar English remedies for sale.[69] Two years later a New York store turned to tortured rhyme to convey the same message:[70]

Medicines approv'd by royal charter,
James, Godfry, Anderson, Court-plaster,
With Keyser's, Hooper's Lockyer's Pills,
And Honey Balsam Doctor Hill's;
Bateman and Daffy, Jesuits drops,
And all the Tinctures of the shops,
As Stoughton, Turlington and Grenough,
Pure British Oil and Haerlem Ditto....

[69] _Maryland Journal and Baltimore Gazette_, Baltimore, October
29, 1782.

[70] _New York Packet and the American Advertiser_, New York,
October 11, 1784.

Later in the decade, the Salem apothecary, Jonathon Waldo, made a list of "An assortment [of patent medicines] Usually Called For." The imported brand of Turlington's Balsam, Waldo stated, was "very dear" at 36 shillings a dozen, adding that his "own" was worth but 15 shillings for the same quantity. The English original of another nostrum, Essence of Peppermint, he listed at 18 shillings a dozen, his own at a mere 10/6.[71] Despite the price differential, importations continued. A Beverly, Massachusetts, druggist, Robert Rantoul, in 1799 ordered from London filled boxes and bottles of Anderson's Pills, Bateman's Drops, Steer's Opodeldoc, and Turlington's Balsam, along with the empty vials in which to put British Oil and Essence of Peppermint.[72] For decades thereafter the catalogs of wholesale drug firms continued to specify two grades of various patent medicines for sale, termed "English" and "American," "true" and "common," or "genuine" and "imitation."[73] This had not been the case in patent medicine listings of 18th-century catalogs.[74]

[71] Waldo, _op. cit._ (footnote 65).

[72] Robert Rantoul, Apothecary daybooks, 3 vols., Beverly,
Massachusetts [1796-1812]. Manuscript originals preserved in the
Beverly Historical Society. Also see Robert W. Lovett, "Squire
Rantoul and his drug store," _Bulletin of the Business Historical
Society_, June 1951, vol. 25, pp. 99-114.

[73] Joel and Jotham Post, _A catalogue of drugs, medicines &
chemicals, sold wholesale & retail, by Joel and Jotham Post,
druggists, corner of Wall and William-Streets_, New York, 1804;
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, _Catalogue of the materia
medica and of the pharmaceutical preparations, with the uniform
prices of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy_, Boston, 1828;
George W. Carpenter, _Essays on some of the most important
articles of the materia medica ... to which is added a catalogue
of medicines, surgical instruments, etc._, Philadelphia, 1834.

[74] John Dunlap, _Catalogus medicinarum et pharmacorum_,
Philadelphia, 1771; John Day, _Catalogue of drugs, chymical and
galenical preparations, shop furniture, patent medicines, and
surgical instruments sold by John Day and Company, druggists and
chymists in second-street_, Philadelphia, 1771; George
Griffenhagen, "The Day-Dunlap 1771 pharmaceutical catalog,"
_American Journal of Pharmacy_, September 1955, vol. 127, pp.
296-302; also _The New York Physician and American Medicine_, May
1956, vol. 46, pp. 42-44; Smith and Bartlett, _Catalogue of drugs
and medicines, instruments and utensils, dyestuffs, groceries,
and painters' colours, imported, prepared, and sold, by Smith and
Bartlett, at their druggists store and apothecaries shop_,
Boston, 1795.

In buying Anderson's and Bateman's remedies from London in 1799, Robert Rantoul of Massachusetts specified that they be secured from Dicey. It will be remembered that 60 years earlier William Dicey, John Cluer, and Robert Raikes were the group of entrepreneurs who had aided Benjamin Okell in patenting the pectoral drops bearing Bateman's name. Then and throughout the century, this concern continued to operate a warehouse in the Bow Churchyard, Cheapside, London. In 1721, it was known as the "Printing-house and Picture Warehouse" of John Cluer, printer,[75] but by 1790, it was simply the "Medicinal Warehouse" of Bow Churchyard, Cheapside. This address lay in the center of the London area whence came nearly all of the British goods exported to America.[76] It had been the location of many merchants who had migrated to New England in the 17th century, and these newcomers had done business with their erstwhile associates who did not leave home. Thus were started trade channels which continued to run. The Bow Churchyard Warehouse may have been the major exporter of English patent medicines to colonial America, although others of importance were located in the same London region, in particular Robert Turlington of Lombard Street and Francis Newbery of St. Paul's Churchyard. The significance of the fact that there were key suppliers of patent medicines for the American market lies in the selection process which resulted. Out of the several hundred patent medicines which 18th-century Britain had available, Americans dosed themselves with that score or more which the major exporters shipped to colonial ports.

[75] _London Mercury_, London, August 19-26, 1721.

[76] Bernard Bailyn, _The New England merchants in the
seventeenth century_, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1955, pp. 35-36.

Not only did the Bow Churchyard Warehouse firm have Bateman's Drops. It will be remembered that in 1721 they advertised that they were preparing Daffy's Elixir. In 1743, they and Newbery were made exclusive vendors of Hooper's Pills.[77] By 1750, the firm was also marketing British Oil, Anderson's Pills, and Stoughton's Elixir.[78] Turlington in 1755 was selling not only his Balsam of Life, but was also vending Daffy's Elixir, Godfrey's Cordial, and Stoughton's Elixir.[79] After the tension of the Townshend Acts, it was the Bow Churchyard Warehouse which supplied a Boston apothecary with a large supply of nostrums, including all the eight patent medicines then in existence of the ten with which this discussion is primarily concerned.[80] On November 29, 1770, the _Virginia Gazette_ (edited by Purdie and Dixon) reported a shipment, including Bateman's, Hooper's, Betton's, Anderson's, and Godfrey's remedies, just received "from Dr. Bateman's original wholesale warehouse in London" (the Bow Churchyard Warehouse). When Dalby's Carminative and Steer's Opodeldoc came on the market in the 1780's, it was Francis Newbery who had them for sale. Both the Newbery and Dicey (Bow Churchyard Warehouse) firms continued to operate in the post-Revolutionary years. Thus, it was no accident but rather vigorous commercial promotion over the decades, that resulted in the most popular items on the Dicey and Newbery lists appearing in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy pamphlet published in 1824. And although the same old firms continued to export the same old medicines to the new United States, the back of the business was broken. The imitation spurred by wartime necessity became the post-war pattern.

[77] _Daily Advertiser_, London, September 23, 1743.

[78] "Dr. Bateman's Drops" (see footnote 7).

[79] Turlington, _op. cit._ (footnote 15).

[80] _Massachusetts Gazette_, Boston, December 21, 1769.

The key recipes were to be found in formula books. Beginning in the 1790's, even American editions of John Wesley's _Primitive physic_ included formulas for Daffy's, Turlington's, and Stoughton's remedies which the founder of Methodism had introduced into English editions of this guidebook to health shortly before his death.[81]

[81] John Wesley, _Primitive physic_, 21st ed., London, 1785;
_ibid._, 22nd ed., London, 1788; _ibid._, 16th Amer. ed.,
Trenton, 1788; _ibid._, 22nd Amer. ed., Philadelphia, 1791;
George Dock, "The 'primitive physic' of Rev. John Wesley,"
_Journal of the American Medical Association_, February 20, 1915,
vol. 64, pp. 629-638.

The homemade versions, as Jonathon Waldo had recorded (see p. 171), were about half as costly. The state of affairs at the turn of the new century is illustrated in the surviving business papers of the Beverly druggist, Robert Rantoul. In 1799 he had imported the British Oil and Essence of Peppermint bottles. In 1802 he reordered the latter, specifying that they should not have molded in the glass the words "by the Kings Patent." Rantoul wrote a formula for this nostrum in his formula book, and from it he filled 66 bottles in December 1801 and 202 bottles in June 1803. About the same time he began making and bottling Turlington's Balsam, ordering bottles of two sizes from London. His formula book contains these entries: "Jany 4th, 1804 filled 54 small turlingtons with 37 oz. Balsam," and "Jany 20th, 1804 filled 144 small turlingtons with 90-1/4 oz. Balsam and 9 Large Bottles with 8-1/4 oz."[82]

[82] Rantoul, _op. cit._ (footnote 72).

Two decades later the imitation of the English proprietaries was even bigger business. In 1821 William A. Brewer became apprenticed to a druggist in Boston. A number of the old English brands, he recalled, were still imported and sold at the time. But his apprenticeship years were heavily encumbered with duties involving the American versions. "Many, very many, days were spent," Brewer remembered, "in compounding these imitations, cleaning the vials, fitting, corking, labelling, stamping with fac-similes of the English Government stamp, and in wrapping them, with ... little regard to the originator's rights, or that of their heirs...." The British nostrums chiefly imitated in this Boston shop were Steer's, Bateman's, Godfrey's, Dalby's, Betton's, and Stoughton's. The last was a major seller. The store loft was mostly filled with orange peel and gentian, and the laboratory had "a heavy oaken press, fastened to the wall with iron clamps and bolts, which was used in pressing out 'Stoughton's Bitters,' of which we usually prepared a hogshead full at one time." A large quantity was needed. In those days, Brewer asserted, "almost everybody indulged in Stoughton's elixir as morning bitters." [83]

[83] William A. Brewer, "Reminiscences of an old pharmacist."
_Pharmaceutical Record_, August 1, 1884, vol. 4, p. 326.

Other drugstores certainly followed the practice of Brewer's employer, in cleaning up and refilling bottles that had previously been drained of their old English medicines. The chief source of bottles to hold the American imitations, however, was the same as that to which Waldo and Rantoul had turned, English glass factories. It was not so easy for Americans to fabricate the vials as it was for them to compound the mixtures to fill them. In the years before the War of 1812, the British glass industry maintained a virtual monopoly of the specially-shaped bottles for Bateman's, Turlington's, and the other British remedies. When in the 1820's the first titan of made-in-America nostrums, Thomas W. Dyott of Philadelphia, appeared upon the scene, this venturesome entrepreneur decided to make bottles not only for his own assorted remedies but also for the popular English brands. In time he succeeded in improving the quality of American bottle glass and in drastically reducing prices. The standard cost for most of the old English vials under the British monopoly had been $5.50 a gross. By the early 1830's Dyott had cut the price to under two dollars.[84]

[84] _Democratic Press_, Philadelphia, July 1 and October 28,
1824; Thomas W. Dyott, _An exposition of the system of moral and
mental abor, established at the glass factory of Dyottsville_,
Philadelphia, 1833; and Joseph D. Weeks, "Reports on the
manufacture of glass," _Report of the manufactures of the United
States at the tenth census_, Washington, D. C, 1883.

Other American glass manufactories followed suit. For example, in 1835 the Free Will Glass Manufactory was making "Godfrey's Cordial," "Turlington's Balsam," and "Opodeldoc Bitters bottles."[85] An 1848 broadside entitled "The Glassblowers' List of Prices of Druggist's Ware," a broadside preserved at the Smithsonian Institution, includes listings for Turlington's Balsam, Godfrey's Cordial, Dalby's and Small and Large Opodeldoc bottles, among many other American patent medicine bottles.

[85] Van Rensscalar, _op. cit._, (footnote 53), p. 151.

In the daybook of the Beverly, Massachusetts, apothecary,[86] were inscribed for Turlington's Balsam, three separate formulas, each markedly different from the others. A Philadelphia medical journal in 1811 contained a complaint that Americans were using calomel in the preparation of Anderson's Scots Pills, and that this practice was a deviation both from the original formula and from the different but still all-vegetable formula by which the pills were being made in England.[87] Various books were published revealing the "true" formulas, in conflicting versions.[88]

[86] Rantoul, _op. cit._ (footnote 72).

[87] _Philadelphia Medical Museum_, new ser., vol. 1, p. 130,
1811.

[88] _Formulae selectae; or a collection of prescriptions of
eminent physicians, and the most celebrated patent medicines_,
New York, 1818; John Ayrton Paris, _Pharmacologia; or the history
of medicinal substances, with a view to establish the art of
prescribing and of composing extemporaneous formulae upon fixed
and scientific principles_, New York, 1822.

Philadelphia College of Pharmacy Formulary

As the years went by and therapeutic laissez-faire continued to operate, conditions worsened. By the early 1820's, the old English patent medicines, whether of dwindling British vintage or of burgeoning American manufacture, were as familiar as laudanum or castor oil.

With the demand so extensive and the state of production so chaotic, the officials of the new Philadelphia College of Pharmacy were persuaded that remedial action was mandatory. In May 1822, the Board of Trustees resolved to appoint a 5-man committee "to select from such prescriptions for the preparation of Patent Medicines ..., as may be submitted to them by the members of the College, those which in their opinion, may be deemed most appropriate for the different compositions."

The committee chose for study "eight of the Patent Medicines most in use," and sought to ascertain what ingredients these ancient remedies ought by right to contain. Turning to the original formulas, where these were given in English patent specifications, the pharmacists soon became convinced that the information provided by the original proprietors served "only to mislead."

If the patent specifications were perhaps intentionally confusing, the committee inquired, how could the original formulas really be known? This quest seemed so fruitless that it was not pursued. Instead the pharmacists turned to American experience in making the English medicines. From many members of the College, and from other pharmacists as well, recipes were secured. The result was shocking. Although almost every one came bolstered with the assertion that it was true and genuine, the formulas differed so markedly one from the other, the committee reported, as to make "the task of reformation a very difficult one." Indeed, in some cases, when two recipes bearing the same old English name were compared, they were found to contain not one ingredient in common. In other cases, the proportions of some basic ingredient would vary widely. All the formulas collected for Bateman's Pectoral Drops, for instance, contained opium, but the amount of opium to liquid ingredients in one formula submitted was 1 to 14, while in another it was 1 to 1,000.

Setting forth boldly to strip these English nostrums of "their extravagant pretensions," the committee sought to devise formulas for their composition as simple and inexpensive as possible while yet retaining the "chief compatible virtues" ascribed to them on the traditional wrappers.

Hooper's Female Pills had been from the beginning a cathartic and emmenagogue. However, only aloes was common to all the recipes submitted to the committee. This botanical, which still finds a place in laxative products today, was retained by the committee as the cathartic base, and to it were added "the Extract of Hellebore, the Sulphate of Iron and the Myrrh as the best emmenagogues."

Anderson's Scots Pills had been a "mild" purgative throughout its long career, varying in composition "according to the judgement or fancy of the preparer." Paris, an English physician, had earlier reported that these pills consisted of aloes and jalap; the committee decided on aloes, with small amounts of colocynth and gamboge, as the purgatives of choice.

Of Bateman's Pectoral Drops more divergent versions existed than of any of the others. The committee settled on a formula of opium and camphor, not unlike paragoric in composition, with catachu, anise flavoring, and coloring added. Godfrey's Cordial also featured opium in widely varying amounts. The committee chose a formula which would provide a grain of opium per ounce, to which was added sassafras "as the carminative which has become one of the chief features of the medicine."

English apothecary Dalby had introduced his "Carminative" for "all those fatal Disorders in the Bowels of Infants." The committee decided that a grain of opium to the ounce, together with magnesia and three volatile oils, were essential "for this mild carminative and laxative ... for children."

Instead of the complex formula described by Robert Turlington for his Balsam of Life, the committee settled on the official formula of Compound Tincture of Benzoin, with balsam of peru, myrrh, and angelica root added, to produce "an elegant and rich balsamic tincture." On the other hand, the committee adopted "with slight variations, the Linimentum Saponis of the old London Dispensatory" to which they, like Steers, added only ammonia.

The committee found two distinct types of British Oil on the market. One employed oil of turpentine as its basic ingredient, while the other utilized flaxseed oil. The committee decided that both oils, along with several others in lesser quantities, were necessary to produce a medicine "as exhibited in the directions" sold with British Oil. "Oil of Bricks" which apparently was the essential ingredient of the Betton British Oil, was described by the committee as "a nauseous and unskilful preparation, which has long since been banished from the Pharmacopoeias."

Thus the Philadelphia pharmacists devised eight new standardized formulas, aimed at retaining the therapeutic goals of the original patent medicines, while brought abreast of current pharmaceutical knowledge. Recognizing that the labeling had long contained "extravagant pretensions and false assertions," the committee recommended that the wrappers be modified to present only truthful claims. If the College trustees should adopt the changes suggested, the committee concluded optimistically, then "the reputation of the College preparations would soon become widely spread, and we ... should reap the benefit of the examination which has now been made, in an increased public confidence in the Institution and its members; the influence of which would be felt in extending the drug business of our city."[89]

[89] Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, _Formulae for the
preparation of eight patent medicines, adopted by the
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy_, May 4, 1824; Joseph W.
England, ed., _The first century of the Philadelphia College of
Pharmacy_, 1821-1921, Philadelphia, 1922.

The trustees felt this counsel to be wise, and ordered 250 copies of the 12-page pamphlet to be printed. So popular did this first major undertaking of the Philadelphia College prove that in 1833 the formulas were reprinted in the pages of the journal published by the College.[90] Again the demand was high, few numbers of the publication were "more sought after," and in 1839 the formulas were printed once again, this time with slight revisions.[91]

[90] "Patent medicines," _Journal of the Philadelphia College of
Pharmacy_, April 1833, vol. 5, pp. 20-31.

[91] C. Ellis, "Patent medicines," _American Journal of
Pharmacy_, April 1839, new ser., vol. 5, pp. 67-74.

Thus had the old English patent medicines reached a new point in their American odyssey. They had first crossed the Atlantic to serve the financial interests of the men who promoted them. During the Revolution they had lost their British identity while retaining their British names. The Philadelphia pharmacists, while adopting them and reforming their character, did not seek to monopolize them, as had the original proprietors. They now could work for every man.

English Patent Medicines Go West

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Patent Medicines In The 20th Century

Although the old English patent medicines had not been the target at which disturbed physicians and "muck-raking" journalists had taken aim, these ancient remedies were governed by provisions of the new law. In November 1906 the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, in charge of administering the new federal statute, received a letter from a wholesale druggist in Evansville, Indiana. One of his stocks in trade, the druggist wrote, was a remedy called Godfrey's Cordial. He realized that the Pure Food and Drugs Act had something to do with the labeling of medicines containing opium, as Godfrey's did, and he wanted to know from the Bureau just what was required of him.[115] Many manufacturing druggists and producers of medicine were equally anxious to learn how the law would affect them. The editors of a trade paper, the _American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record_, issued warnings and gave advice. It was still the custom, they noted, to wrap bottles of ancient patent medicines, like Godfrey's Cordial and Turlington's Balsam, in facsimiles of the original circulars, on which were printed extravagant claims and fabulous certificates of cures that dated back some two hundred years. The new law was not going to permit the continuation of such 18th-century practices. Statements on the label "false or misleading in any particular" were banned.[116]

[115] Letter from Charles Leich & Co. to Harvey Washington Wiley,
Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, November 2, 1906.
Manuscript original in Record Group 97, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.

[116] _American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record_, 1906, vol.
49, pp. 343-344.

A few manufacturers, as the years went by, fell afoul of this and other provisions of the law. In 1918 a Reading, Pennsylvania, firm entered a plea of guilty and received a fifty dollar fine for putting on the market an adulterated and misbranded version of Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops.[117] The law required that all medicines sold under a name recognized in the _United States pharmacopoeia_ or the _National formulary_, and Bateman's was included in the latter, must not differ from the standard of strength, quality, or purity as established by these volumes. Yet the Bateman Drops produced in Reading, the government charged, fell short. They contained only 27.8 percent of the alcohol and less than a tenth of the morphine that they should have had. While short on active ingredients, the Drops were long on claims. The wrapper boasted that the medicine was "effective as a remedy for all fluxes, spitting of blood, agues, measles, colds, coughs, and to put off the most violent fever; as a treatment, remedy, and cure for stone and gravel in the kidneys, bladder, and urethra, shortness of breath, straightness of the breast; and to rekindle the most natural heat in the bodies by which they restore the languishing to perfect health." Okell and Dicey had scarcely promised more. By 20th-century standards, the government asserted, these claims were false and fraudulent.

[117] Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, Notices of
Judgment under the Food and Drugs Act, Notice of Judgment 6222,
United States vs. Pabst Pure Extract Co., 1919.

Other manufacturers sold Bateman's Drops without running afoul of the law. In 1925, ninety-nine years after the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy pamphlet was printed, one North Carolina firm was persuaded that it still was relevant to tell potential customers, in a handbill, that its Drops were being made in strict conformity with the College formula.[118] For Compound Tincture of Opium and Gambir Compound, however, most manufacturers chose to follow the _National formulary_ specifications, which remained official until 1936.

[118] Original handbill, distributed by Standard Drug Co.,
Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1925, preserved in the files of
the Bureau of Investigation, American Medical Association,
Chicago, Ill.

Another old English patent medicine against which the Department of Agriculture was forced to take action was Hooper's Female Pills. Between 1919 and 1923, government agents seized a great many shipments of this ancient remedy in versions put out by three Philadelphia concerns.[119] Some of the packages bore red seals, others green seals, and still others black, but the labeling of all claimed them to be "a safe and sovereign remedy in female complaints." This theme was expanded in considerable detail and there was an 18th-century ring to the promise that the pills would work a sure cure "in all hypochondriac, hysterick or vapourish disorders." No pill made essentially of aloes and ferrous sulphate, said the government experts, could do these things. Nor did the manufacturers, in court, seek to say otherwise. Whether the seals were green or red, whether the packages were seized in Washington or Worcester, the result was the same. No party appeared in court to claim the pills, and they were condemned and destroyed.

[119] Multiple seizures were made of products shipped by the
Horace B. Taylor Co., Fore & Co., and the American Synthetic Co.
The quotations are from Notice of Judgment 8868; see also 8881,
8914, 8936, 8956, 8974, 9134, 9147, 9203, 9510, 9586, 9785,
10203, 10204, 10629, 11519, 11669.

In one of the last actions under the 1906 law, a case concluded in 1940, after the first federal statute had been superseded by a more rigorous one enacted in 1938, two of the old English patent medicines encountered trouble.[120] They were British Oil and Dalby's Carminative, as prepared by the South Carolina branch of a large pharmaceutical manufacturing concern.

[120] Federal Security Agency, Food and Drug Administration,
Notice of Judgment 31134, United States vs. McKesson and Robbins,
Inc., Murray Division, 1942.

According to the label, the British Oil was made in conformity with the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy formula given in an outdated edition of the _United States dispensatory_. But instead of containing a proper amount of linseed oil, if indeed it contained any, the medicine was made with cottonseed oil, an ingredient not mentioned in the Dispensatory. Therefore, the government charged, the Oil was adulterated, under that provision of the law requiring a medicine to maintain the strength and purity of any standard it professed to follow. More than that, the labeling contravened the law since it represented the remedy as an effective treatment for various swellings, inflammations, fresh wounds, earaches, shortnesses of breath, and ulcers.

Dalby's Carminative was merely misbranded, but that was bad enough. Its label suggested that it be used especially "For Infants Afflicted With Wind, Watery Gripes, Fluxes and Other Disorders of the Stomach and Bowels," although it would aid adults as well. The impression that this remedy was capable of curing such afflictions, the government charged, was false and fraudulent. Moreover, since the Carminative contained opium, it was not a safe medicine when given according to the dosage directions in a circular accompanying the bottle. For these and several other violations of the law, the defending company, which did not contest the case, was fined a hundred dollars.

Throughout the 19th century, occasional criticism of the old English patent medicines had been made in the lay press. One novel[121] describes a physician who comments on the use of Dalby's Carminative for babies: "Don't, for pity's sake, vitiate and torment your poor little angel's stomach, so new to the atrocities of this world, with drugs. These mixers of baby medicines ought to be fed nothing but their own nostrums. That would put a stop to their inventions of the adversary."

[121] John William De Forest, _Miss Ravenel's conversion from
secession to loyalty_, New York, 1867.

Opium had been lauded in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the old English proprietaries began, as a superior cordial which could moderate most illnesses and even cure some. "Medicine would be a one-armed man if it did not possess this remedy." So had stated the noted English physician, Thomas Sydenham.[122] But the 20th century had grown to fear this powerful narcotic, especially in remedies for children. This point of view, illustrated in the governmental action concerning Dalby's Carminative, was also reflected in medical comment about Godfrey's Cordial. During 1912, a Missouri physician described the death of a baby who had been given this medicine for a week.[123] The symptoms were those of opium poisoning. Deploring the naming of this "dangerous mixture" a "cordial," since the average person thought of a cordial as beneficial, the doctor hoped that the formula might be omitted from the next edition of the _National formulary_. This did not happen, for the recipe hung on until 1926. The Harrison Narcotic Act, enacted in 1914 as a Federal measure to restrict the distribution of narcotics,[124] failed to restrict the sale of many opium-bearing compounds like Godfrey's Cordial. In 1931, a Tennessee resident complained to the medical journal _Hygeia_ that this medication was "sold in general stores and drug stores here without prescription and is given to babies." To this, the journal replied that the situation was "little short of criminal."[125] The charge leveled against his competitors by one of the first producers of Godfrey's Cordial two centuries earlier (see page 158) may well have proved a prophecy broad enough to cover the whole history of this potent nostrum. "... Many Men, Women, and especially Infants," he said, "may fall as Victims, whose Slain may exceed Herod's Cruelty...."

[122] Charles H. LaWall, _The curious lore of drugs and medicines
(Four thousand years of pharmacy)_, Garden City, New York, 1927,
p. 281.

[123] W. B. Sissons, "Poisoning from Godfrey's Cordial," _Journal
of the American Medical Association_, March 2, 1912, vol. 58, p.
650.

[124] Edward Kremers and George Urdang, _History of pharmacy_,
Philadelphia, 1951, pp. 170, 278.

[125] "Godfrey's Cordial," _Hygeia_, October 1931, vol. 9, p.
1050.

For those who persist in using the formulas of the early English patent medicines, recipes are still available. Turlington's Balsam remains as an unofficial synonym of U.S.P. Compound Tincture of Benzoin. Concerning its efficacy, the _United States dispensatory_[126] states: "The tincture is occasionally employed internally as a stimulating expectorant in chronic bronchitis. More frequently it is used as an inhalent ... It has also been recommended in chronic dysentery ... but is of doubtful utility."

[126] _The dispensatory of the United States of America_, 25th
ed., Philadelphia, 1955, p. 158.

A formula for Godfrey's Cordial, under the title of Mixture of Opium and Sassafras, is still carried in the _Pharmaceutical recipe book_.[127] _Remington's practice of pharmacy_[128] retains a formula for Dalby's Carminative under the former _National formulary_ title of Carminative Mixture.

[127] _The Pharmaceutical recipe book_, 2nd ed., American
Pharmaceutical Association, 1936, p. 121.

[128] Eric W. Martin and E. Fullerton Cook, editors, _Remington's
practice of pharmacy_, 11th ed., Easton, Pennsylvania, 1956, p.
286.

In the nation of their origin, the continuing interest in the ancient proprietaries seems somewhat more lively than in America. The 1953 edition of _Pharmaceutical formulas_, published by the London journal _The Chemist and Druggist_, includes formulas for eight of the ten old patent medicines described in this study. This compendium, indeed, lists not one, but three different recipes for British Oil, and the formulas by which Dalby's Carminative may be compounded run on to a total of eight. Two lineal descendents of 18th-century firms which took the lead in exporting to America still manufacture remedies made so long ago by their predecessors. May, Roberts & Co., Ltd., of London, successors to the Newbery interests, continues to market Hooper's Female Pills, whereas W. Sutton & Co. (Druggists' Sundries), London, Ltd., of Enfield, in Middlesex, successors to Dicey & Co. at Bow Churchyard, currently sells Bateman's Pectoral Drops.[129]

[129] Letter from Owen H. Waller, editor of _The Chemist and
Druggist_, to George Griffenhagen, January 15, 1957.

In America, however, the impact of the old English patent medicines has been largely absorbed and forgotten. During the past twenty years a revolution in medical therapy has taken place. Most of the drugs in use today were unknown a quarter of a century ago. Some of the newer drugs can really perform certain of the healing miracles claimed by their pretentious proprietors for the old English patent medicines.

A more recent import from Britain, penicillin, may prove to have an even longer life on these shores than did Turlington's Balsam or Bateman's Drops. Still, two hundred years is a long time. Despite the fact that these early English patent medicines are nearly forgotten by the public today, their American career is none the less worth tracing. It reflects aspects not only of medical and pharmaceutical history, but of colonial dependence, cultural nationalism, industrial development, and popular psychology. It reveals how desperate man has been when faced with the terrors of disease, how he has purchased the packaged promises offered by the sincere but deluded as well as by the charlatan. It shows how science and law have combined to offer man some safeguards against deception in his pursuit of health.

The time seems ripe to write the epitaph of the old English patent medicines in America. That they are now a chapter of history is a token of medical progress for mankind.