Part 22

Stoughton’s “great cordial elixir” comes next, in 1712, and there is nothing more in the proprietary medicine line until 1722, when a patent for Robert Eaton’s Styptick medicine appears. In that year a curious patent was granted to George Sinclair for “raising and cultivating the plants which are commonly called or do produce the balsam of tolu, Peru, and capair, dragon’s blood, coloquintida, scamony, rhubarb, jalap, ipecacuanha (and others named), and curing the insect commonly called cochenele and cultivating the plant which they feed and live upon.” No particulars of the inventor’s ideas are given.

Benjamin Okell’s patent for Dr. Bateman’s pectoral drops, stated to act by moderate sweat and urine, and to be useful in rheumatism, afflictions of the stone, gravel, agues, and hysterics, was dated March 31, 1726, and was granted to him in recognition of the long study, application, and great expense he had been put to in finding out this remedy and bringing it to perfection. He furnished no particulars. Bateman’s drops probably always depended on opium for its efficacy, and in time various formulas for a medicine under that name for coughs came to be adopted. In 1833 the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy published the following formula “to represent Bateman’s Pectoral Drops because of its general use, and to secure uniformity.” They said the preparation was then being sold in strengths varying from 7½ to 100 grains to the pint. The formula prescribed was: Diluted alcohol, 4 gallons; red sanders, rasped, 2 oz. Digest for 24 hours, filter, add opium in powder 2 oz., catechu in powder 2 oz., camphor 2 oz., oil of anise ½ oz. Digest for ten days.

The patent for John Hooper’s Female Pills, granted in 1743 to John Hooper, apothecary and man midwife of Reading, contains a copy of an affidavit made by the patentee, who, being “obliged to give under his hand and seal a particular description of his invention,” came before the King in Chancery, and satisfied the royal representative with a specification declaring that his medicine was “compounded as followeth:--Of the best purging stomatick and anti-hysterick ingredients, duly proportioned and made into a powder, and beat into a mass for pills with sufficient quantity of a strong infusion of the above-mentioned ingredients; and when the same is made into pills about the bigness of a small pea, two or three are to be given to persons from 7 years of age to 15, and three or four from 15 years of age to 70 every other night.” Hooper must have been a humorist.

Betton’s British oils “for the cure of rheumatic and scorbutic and other cases” had been patented in 1742. The oil was “extracted from the black, pitchy, flinty roch or rock lying immediately over the coal in coal mines.” This was reduced to powder and then subjected to heat in a closed furnace, by which means the oil was obtained.

The patent for Dr. James’s fever powder (1747) is referred to at length elsewhere. It is agreed that the preparation could not be produced by the process detailed; but, according to Lord Mansfield, it was also defective in another respect. In a judgment given by that eminent authority in 1778 (in the case of Liardet v. Johnson) he illustrated an argument he was using by a reference to Dr. James’s patent, “in the specification of which,” he said, “he has mentioned the articles only of which those powders were composed, and omitted the proportion or quantity.” Consequently Lord Mansfield added, “Dr. James never durst bring an action for infringement, and it was certainly wise in him not to do so, for no patent could stand on such a specification.” His lordship went on to enlarge on the extreme importance of exact quantities in the exact formulas for medicines.

Dr. James also patented his “analeptic pills” in 1774. They were to be compounded of equal parts of pil. rufi, gum ammoniacum, and his own fever powder. The two first named ingredients were to be “placed in a large cave underground furnished with the conductors of electrical fire” by which they were to be dissolved. The powder was then to be added and the pills to be made up with gum arabic.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the patents for compounded medicines become more numerous, but they are generally of no present interest. The names of a very few have come down to our day. Ann Pike’s itch ointment (patented 1760) may be noticed. To prepare this, pomatum and calomel were first mixed and allowed to stand several days; another ointment was made with hogs’ lard and Jesuit’s bark, and this was likewise set aside for a few days. These two ointments were then blended together, mercury added to them, and the mass stirred daily for some time. Two other ointments were also made and combined like the others, the ingredients of these being deer suet, turbith mineral, lard, powdered tutty, flowers of brimstone, and wood soot.

In 1777 Robert Grubb patented a medicine called the Frier’s Drops, “for the cure of the venereal disease, scurvy, rheumatism, stranguary and gleets.” It contained calomel, antimony, guaiacum wood, balsam of Peru, hemlock, sugar candy, oil of sassafras, tartaric acid, and gum arabic, with spirit of wine. The particular interest of this is the name which may have been the original of the Friar’s Balsam named in the Medicine Stamp Act. The Friar’s Balsam known to us cannot be traced as a proprietary medicine.

Gale’s Spa Elixir, patented 1782, is notable as a specimen of condensed information. Its composition is thus described:--“R. fer. q.l.; cor, anima., sp.vin. esse.tinc. anima: super:aq: nat:, sp.sal: q.s.; dissolve, digest, correct, evaporate, and extract the elixir S.A.” The abbreviated terms and the punctuation are copied from the specification.

Nathaniel Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam was patented in 1785, Spilsbury’s Anti-scorbutic Drops in 1792, Ching’s Worm Lozenges in 1796, and Innocenza della Lena winds up the century with a formula conceived quite on the lines of the pharmacy then departing. It was for “A certain medicine called flogistical and fixed earth of Mars or powder of Mars.” It is not stated what the medicine was for, but its preparation was awe-inspiring. Mineral earth of iron, copper, crude antimony, mineral salt, and urine were digested for a considerable time in an unvarnished vessel, hermetically sealed, deep down in the earth. Subsequently the mixture was exposed to the rays of the sun for a period, more urine was added, and the interment and the exposure were several times repeated.

Roche’s Embrocation for whooping-cough, patented in 1803, was declared to be compounded of oil of elder, rose leaves, chamomile flowers, oil of caraway, oil of rosemary, cochineal, and alkanet root. This remedy is still popular, but it is understood to have a composition very different from that specified.

Perkins’s Metallic Tractors were patented on March 10th, 1798. Benjamin Douglas Perkins claimed to have discovered “an art of relieving and curing a variety of aches, pains, and diseases in the human body, by drawing over the parts affected or those contiguous thereto, in certain directions, various pointed metals, which from the affinity they have with the offending matter,” or from some other cause, “extract, or draw out the same, and thus cure the patient.” The metals used were combinations of copper, zinc, and gold; or of iron, silver, and platinum. The tractors were invented by Elisha Perkins, the father of Benjamin, who died at New York in 1799. The tractors were united together like a pair of compasses, and one of the arms was obtuse and the other pointed. They professed to apply galvanic action to the relief and cure of pain and disease. Galvani’s report of his experiments was only published about 1790, and not much earlier Mesmer’s animal magnetism had excited marvellous interest in Paris. Perkins’s Tractors had an enormous popularity for a time in England and in Denmark, but nowhere else to any extent. Two Bath doctors, named Falconer and Haygarth, professed to get as good results with tractors made of wood, many patients of the Bath Hospital declaring that these promptly relieved their pains. From these experiments it was argued that the alleged cures were entirely due to the imagination of the sufferers.

After 1800 medicinal compounds are only rarely patented. Of those known to the present generation, Ford’s Balsam of Horehound appears in 1816, Savory’s Seidlitz Powders were protected in 1815, Ridge’s Food, 1862, and Page Woodcock’s Wind Pills, 1852. A patent was taken in 1853 by Sir James Murray for aerating cod-liver oil with carbonic acid gas, and William Brockedon’s patent for compressing drugs and blacklead, which has borne fruit a thousandfold in these later days, was granted in 1843.

ANDERSON’S SCOTS PILLS.

These pills acquired extraordinary popularity, particularly in Scotland and France, and to some extent in other countries, including England. Either these pills or Singleton’s Eye Ointment is the proprietary remedy still sold in this country with the longest history. It is claimed that the ointment was invented some forty years earlier than the pills, but it must be admitted that the records of the latter, especially in their early days, are more exactly authenticated.

Dr. Patrick Anderson was a Scotch physician of considerable reputation in London in the Stuart period. He is described on some of his books as Physician to Charles I. In 1635 he published a treatise entitled as follows:--“Grana Angelica; hoc est pilularum hujus nominis insignis utilitas; quibus etiam accesserunt alia quaedam pancula de durioris alvi incommodis propter materiam cognitionem, ac vice supplementi in fine adjuncta.” He stated that he had obtained the formula for these pills in Venice. After his death they were sold in Edinburgh by his daughter Miss Katherine Anderson, and she by a deed registered in the Commissary Court books of Edinburgh, the 16th December, 1686, declared that she had communicated the secret to Thomas Weir, surgeon, in Edinburgh, “and to no other person.”

To Dr. Weir letters patent for the pills were granted by King James II, 1687, with letters of Certification, &c., by King William and Queen Mary, 1694; and Testification by the Town Council of Edinburgh, 1694. From Dr. Weir by regular succession and assignation, the secret was conveyed to his widow, 1711; thence to their son Alex. Weir, 1715; then to Lilias Weir, his sister, 1726; by her to Dr. Thomas Irving, her nephew, 1770; then to his widow, Mrs. Irving, 1797; by her to her son, James Irving, 1814, but the old lady appears to have retained an interest in them until her death in 1837, at the age of 99. During her life, and probably before and after, the “shop” where the pills were made and sold was on the second floor of a house in the Lawn Market opposite the site of the West Bow, a steep street which led down to the Grassmarket. The house still remains, the date 1690 being carved on the lintel. After certain assignations and trusteeships the property came into the hands of a Mr. J. Rodger who sold his rights to Messrs. Raimes, Blanshard & Co. in 1876. They and their successors, Raimes, Clark & Co., Limited, have been the proprietors since the date mentioned, and they inform me that there is still a small demand for them.

Formulas for “Anderson’s Scots Pills” will be found in all the manuals of pharmacy published in Europe and America, but they differ considerably. Paris in “Pharmacologia” said they were a compound of aloes and jalap with oil of anise; the French Codex which adopted them, or at least the name, compounded them of aloes and gamboge with oil of anise; Niemann, whose formulary had a quasi-official sanction in Holland early in the nineteenth century gave a much more complicated recipe, adding to the aloes both jalap and gamboge, together with sulphur, burnt ivory, liquorice powder, and soap. “Pharmaceutical Formulas” states that they are well represented by Pil Aloes et Myrrhæ B.P., “which (saving excipient) contains the same ingredients as those mentioned in a copy of the original document deposited in the Rolls House.”

ANODYNE NECKLACES.

Anodyne necklaces were perhaps the most extensively advertised of the quack remedies of the eighteenth century. The introduction of them is generally attributed to one of the Chamberlen family, well known in medical history as the inventors of the modern midwifery forceps.

In a collection of quack advertisements in the British Museum, all published in the last half of the seventeenth century, there is a handbill issued by Major John Coke, “a licensed physician and one of his Majesty’s Chymists” advertising miraculous necklaces for children breeding teeth “preventing (by God’s assistance) feavers, convulsions, ruptures, chincough, ricketts, and such attendant distempers.” These are 5s. each. A number of titled people whose children have used these necklaces are named. A correspondent of Notes and Queries (Mr. J. Elliot Hodgkin, 6th Ser., Vol. IX.) quotes a reference to anodyne necklaces from a pamphlet published in 1717 dedicated to Dr. Chamberlen and the Royal Society, evidently an advertisement which it may not be too uncharitable to suppose was written by Chamberlen himself. But another correspondent of the same journal (6th Ser., Vol. X.) quotes from Smith’s “Book for a Rainy Day” another reference to the necklaces in which they are alluded to as Mr. Burchell’s, and are said to be “so strongly recommended by two eminent physicians, Dr. Tanner, the inventor, and Dr. Chamberlain,” to whom he had communicated the prescription. The necklaces were composed of artificially prepared beads, small like barleycorns, and they were sold at 5s. each. The beads were often made of peony wood, a substance which Oribasius (fourth and fifth centuries) recommended to be hung round the neck for the cure of epilepsy. They were especially recommended for children cutting teeth, and for pregnant women. No doubt they served like any other hard substance to help in the former trouble to open the gums, but the idea suggested was that they gave out a certain vapour or effluvium which reduced the feverish condition.

“May I die by an anodyne necklace,” is an expression used by one of the characters in “The Vicar of Wakefield” (Ch. XX.). In a comment on this allusion by the eminent authority on the eighteenth century, Mr. Austin Dobson, it was explained that hanging was there euphemistically referred to. Mr. Dobson’s mistake was pointed out in Notes and Queries, and he acknowledged it.

The Collier de Morand was a neckband sold for goitre. It was made of carded cotton on which was sprinkled a powder consisting of equal parts of sal ammoniac, common salt, and burnt sponge. Paracelsus recommended that coral should be worn round the necks of children to preserve them from the effects of sorcery.

DAFFY’S ELIXIR.

The Rev. Thomas Daffy, who invented the Elixir Salutis with which his name has been associated for about 250 years, was rector of Redmile in Leicestershire from 1660 to 1680. He had been appointed rector of Harby in the same county in Cromwell’s time, but the Countess of Rutland, who presumably “sat under” him, was a lady of evangelical ideas, and the Rev. Thomas was apparently of a “high” tendency, for according to Nichols’s “History of Leicestershire,” “he was removed from that better living to this worse one to satisfy the spleen of the Countess of Rutland, a puritanical lady who had conceived a feeling against him for being a man of other principles.” Just when he invented his elixir does not appear, but it is to be hoped that the profits from it made up for the sacrifice he had to make in consequence of his “other principles.” It is clear from the references to the medicine which are found in general literature and from the fact that it was imitated in the Pharmacopœia (under the formula for Tinctura Sennæ Co.) that it acquired considerable popularity. The following advertisement from the Post Boy of January 1, 1707, tells most of what is known about the elixir:--

Daffye’s famous Elixir Salutis, prepared by Catherine Daffye, daughter of Mr. Thomas Daffye, late rector of Redmile in the vale of Belvoir, who imparted it to his kinsman, Mr. Anthony Daffye, who published the same to the benefit of the community and to his own advantage. The original receipt is now in my possession left to me by my father. My own brother, Mr. Daniel Daffye, apothecary in Nottingham, made this Elixir from the said receipt and sold it there during his life. Those who know it will believe what I declare; and those who do not may be convinced that I am no counterfeit by the colour, taste, smell, and operation of my Elixir. To be had at the Hand and Pen, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden.

Catherine Daffy was not a clever advertiser, for her announcement seems calculated to assist Anthony Daffy’s preparation as much as her own, and it is likely that this was not her intention. Such little evidence as exists goes to show that it was Anthony’s and not Catherine’s Elixir that maintained the fame which had been won.

Daffy’s Elixir is still made by Sutton & Co., of 76 Chiswell Street, the successors to Dicey & Co., of Bow Church Yard, who were themselves successors to Benjamin Okell, who was carrying on the business in 1727, but when or from whom, or for what consideration the property was transferred to them from the Daffy family, is not known. The old-fashioned handbills wrapped round the bottles state that the Elixir was “much recommended to the public by Dr. King, Physician to King Charles II, and the late learned and ingenious Dr. Radcliffe.” Unhappily, however, “a low set of mercenary vendors” have been making imitations of this “noble and generous Elixir,” using “foul and ordinary spirits instead of clean and pure brandy, and base and damaged drugs,” of which none could be guilty “but such as never feel for any but themselves.”