Part 5

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 title 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 Massachusetts Medical Society of 1808). Only two years after Turlington obtained his "Balsam of Life" patent, the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis introduced a recipe under the title of "Balsamum Traumaticum" 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.

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 associated 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 glass in crude raised capitals were the proprietor's name and his claim of THE KINGS ROYAL PATENT. 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 glass on his supply of new genuine bottles was January 26, 1754. 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.

"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 Hampshire, 1926.

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. Godfrey's Cordial came in a conical vial with steep-pitched sides, the cone's point replaced by a narrow mouth. Bateman's Pectoral Drops were packaged in a more common "phial"--a tall and slender cylindrical bottle. Dalby's Carminative came in a bottle not unlike the Godfrey's Cordial bottle, except that Dalby's was impressed with the inscription DALBY'S CARMINATIV. 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 advertisement. Speculation regarding the size and shape of the Stoughton bottle varies. At least one Stoughton bottle was described as "Round amber. Tapered from domed shoulder to base. Long 5 in. bulged neck. Square flanged mouth. Flat base."

Sherman, op. cit. (footnote 53).

Schackne, op. cit. (footnote 53).

George S. and Helen McKearin, American glass, New York, 1941.

Daily Advertiser, London, October 29, 1743.

George Griffenhagen, "Stodgy as a Stoughton bottle," Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 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 Kitchell Whyte, Wisconsin heritage, Boston, 1954; Charles Earle Funk, Heavens to Betsy! and other curious sayings, New York, 1955.

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 illustration 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

On September 29, 1774, John Boyd's "medicinal store" in Baltimore followed the time-honored custom of advertising in the Maryland Gazette a fresh supply of medicines newly at hand from England. To this intelligence was added a warning. Since nonimportation agreements by colonial merchants were imminent, which bade fair to make goods hard to get, customers would be wise to make their purchases before the supply became exhausted. Boyd's prediction was sound. The Boston Tea Party of the previous December had evoked from Parliament a handful of repressive measures, the Intolerable Acts, and at the time of Boyd's advertisement, the first Continental Congress in session was soon to declare that all imports from Great Britain should be halted.

This Baltimore scare advertising may well have been heeded by Boyd's customers, for trade with the mother country had been interrupted before; in the wake of the Townshend Acts in 1767, when Parliament had placed import duties on various products, including tea, American merchants in various cities had entered into nonimportation agreements. Certainly, there was a decided decrease in the Boston advertising of patent medicines received from London. With respect to imports of any kind, it became necessary to explain, and one merchant noted that his goods were "the Remains of a Consignment receiv'd before the Non-Importation Agreement took place." When Parliament yielded to the financial pressure and abolished all the taxes but the one on tea, nonimportation collapsed. This fact is reflected in an advertisement listing nearly a score of patent medicines, including the remedies of Turlington, Bateman, the Bettons, Anderson, Hooper, Godfrey, Daffy, and Stoughton, as "Just come to Hand and Warranted Genuine" on Captain Dane's ship, "directly from the Original Warehouse kept by DICEY and OKELL in Bow Street, London."

Massachusetts Gazette, Boston, December 21, 1769.

Ibid., April 25, 1771.

The days of such ample importations, however, were doomed, as commerce fell prey to the growing revolutionary agitation. The last medical advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, before its demise the following February, appeared five months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The apothecary at the Sign of the Unicorn was frank about the situation. He had imported fresh drugs and medicines every fall and spring up to the preceding June. He still had some on hand. Doctors and others should be advised.

Ibid., September 7, 1775.

Implicit in the advertisement is the suggestion that the securing of new supplies under the circumstances would be highly uncertain. That pre-war stocks did hold out, sometimes well into the war years may be deduced from a Williamsburg apothecary's advertisement. W. Carter took the occasion of the ending of a partnership with his brother to publish a sort of inventory. Along with the "syrup and ointment pots, all neatly painted and lettered," the crabs eyes and claws, the Spanish flies, he listed a dozen patent medicines, including the remedies of Anderson, Bateman, and Daffy.

Virginia Gazette (edited by Dixon and Nicholson), Williamsburg, June 12, 1779.

Even the British blockade failed to prevent patent medicines from being shipped from wholesaler to retailer. In the account book of a Salem, Massachusetts, apothecary, the following entry appears:

4 cases Containing 1 Dozn Bottles Godfreys Cordial 4/ 5 Dozn Do Smaller Turling Bals 18/ 8 Dozn Bettons British Oil 8/ 6-1/2 Dozn Hoopers Female Pills 10/ 4 Dozn nd 8 Boxs And. Pills 10/

SALEM APRIL 8th 1777