In the early 1850's a younsr pharmacist in upstate 

 New York,'* using "old alcohol barrels for tanks," 

 worked hard at concocting Batcman'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.'' 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.''" 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.'* Godfrey's was listed in the 

 1860 inventory of an Illinois general store at si.\ cents 

 a botde.'' 



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 bleed- 

 ing. Alas, in this case, the remedy failed to work.'"" 

 In 1800 that inveterate Methodist traveler. Bishop 

 Francis Asbury, resorted to Stoughton's Elixir when 

 afflicted with an intestinal complaint.'"' In 1808, 

 some two months after the first newspa{)er began pub- 

 lishing west of the Mississippi River, a local store ad- 

 vised readers in the vicinity of St. Louis that "a large 

 supply of patent medicines" had just been received. 



'* James Winchell Forbes, "The memoirs of an .\mcrican 

 pharmacist," Midland Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review, 1911, 

 vol. 45, pp. 388-395. 



"John Uri Lloyd, "Eclectic fads," Eclectic Medical Journal, 

 October 1921, vol. 81, p. 2. 



" Cody & Johnson Drug Co., Apothecary daybooks. Water- 

 town, Wisconsin [1851-1872]. Manuscript originals pre- 

 served in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, cataloged 

 under "Cady." 



" Swarthout and Silsbee, Druggists daybook, Columbus, 

 Wisconsin [1852-1853]. Manuscript original preserved in the 

 State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 



" McClaughry and Tyler, Invoice book, Fountain Green, 

 Illinois [1860-1877]. Manuscript original preserved in the 

 Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield. 



'<"> Harold .\. 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 oj Medicine. 1944, vol. 16, p. 129. 



among them Godfrey's Cordial, British Oil, Turling- 

 ton's Balsam, and Steer's "Ofodcldo [sic]." '"^ 



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 work- 

 ing under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution 

 in both North and South Dakota. Two pear-shaped 

 bottles with Turlington's name and patent claims cm- 

 bossed 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 At- 

 kinson 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-1 850's to the mid-1 880's, served the Hidatsa and 

 Mandan Indians who dwelt in a town named Like-a- 

 I'ishhook Village. The medicine bottles were made 

 of cast glass, light green in color, probably of Ameri- 

 can manufacture. More interesting is the bottle from 

 South Dakota. It was excavated in 1923 near Mo- 

 bridge at a site which was the principal village of the 

 Arikara Indians from about 1800 to 1833, a town vis- 

 ited by Lewis and Clark as they ascended the Missouri 

 River in 1804. This bottle, made of Engli.sh lead glass 

 and therefore an imported article, was unearthed from 

 a grave in the Indian burying ground. Throughout 

 history the claims made in Ijehalf 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 util- 

 ity. '"^ 



Fur traders were still using old English patent medi- 

 cines at mid-century. Four dozen bottles of Turling- 

 ton'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. . . ." '°* In the very same year, out in the 

 new State of California, one of the early San Fran- 

 cisco papers listed Stoughton's Bitters as among the 

 merchandise for sale at a general store."" 



'»-' Isaac Lionbcrger, "Advertisements in the Missouri Ga- 

 zette, 1808-1811," Missouri Historical Society Cotltctions, 1928- 

 1931, vol. 6, p. 21. 



"» Wcdcl and GrifTcnhagcn, op. cit. (footnote 54). 



'<" .\. McDonnell, Contributions to the Historical Society of .Mon- 

 tana, 1941, vol. 10, pp. 202, 217. 



'»5 California Daily Courier, San Francisco, April 25, 1851. 



PAPER 10: OLD ENGLISH PATENT MEDICINES IN AMERICA 



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