Ijiokcn. The imitation spurred by wartime necessity' 

 became the post-war pattern. 



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 Eng- 

 lish editions of this guidebook to health shortly before 

 his death.**' 



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 illus- 

 trated 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 

 botdes 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,'^ oz. Balsam and 9 Large 

 Bottles with 8K oz." ^'' 



Two decades later the imitation of the English pro- 

 prietaries was even bigger business. In 1821 William 

 A. Brewer became apprenticed to a druggist in Bos- 

 ton. A number of the old English brands, he recalled, 

 were still imported and sold at the time. But his ap- 

 prenticeship 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 Stough- 

 ton's. The last was a major seller. The store loft \vas 

 mostly filled with orange peel and gentian, and the 

 laboratory had "a heavy oaken press, fastened to the 



»' John Wesley, Primitive physic, 2Ist ed., London, 1785; ibid., 

 22nd ed., London, 1788; ibid., 16th Amcr. ed., Trenton, 1788; 

 ibid., 22nd Amer. ed., Philadelphia, 1791; George Dock, "The 

 'primitive physic' of Rev. John Wesley," Journal of the .Imerican 

 Medical Association, February 20, 1915, vol. 64, pp. 629-638. 



" Rantoul, op. cit. (footnote 72). 



CORDIAl 



(-ofiUiiiM Aicitliol I 

 •ni If. ir^iif (•* 



;ta.ANDERDR 



Figure lo.— Godfrey's Cordial, early 2olh century 

 botdes manufactured in the U. S. A. (U. S. .National 

 Museum cat. Nos. M-6989 and A/-6990; Smithsonian 

 photo 44287-B.) 



wall with iron clantps and bolts, which was used in 

 pressing out 'Stoughton's Bitters,' of which we usu- 

 ailv prepared a hogshead full at one time." .\ large 

 quantity was needed. In those days. Brewer asserted, 

 "almost everybody indulged in Stoughton's elixir as 

 morning bitters." *' 



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 



^ William .\. Brewer, "Reminiscences of an old pharmacist."' 

 Pharmaceutical Record, August 1, 1884, vol. 4, p. 326. 



PAPER 10: OLD ENGLISH P.\TENT MEDICINES IN AMERICA 



173 



