Langenhan—The Arsenical Solutions. 
187 
APPENDIX 
English Patents. (Patent Medicines.) “In the early days of 
English commerce, monopolies were granted by the sovereigns at 
their own pleasure, and often for their personal profit. Queen 
Elizabeth so largely abused her power in this direction that to¬ 
wards the end of her reign the discontent of her subjects compelled 
her to promise she would offend no more: and her successor, James 
I, gave a similar undertaking. The abuse, however, was continued 
until the Statute of Monopolies, passed in 1624, regulated all such 
grants, placing the power in the hands of Parliament, and limit¬ 
ing the period of privilege to fourteen years. 
For the first century or thereabouts of the administration of this 
Act, specifications of processes or formulas were not a condition 
of the patent. The idea was the introduction into the country of 
new industries, and it was supposed that artificers who would have 
to be employed in any such industries would certainly acquire such 
necessary skill and knowledge about any new manufacture as would 
prevent any perpetuation of the monopoly. It was during the 
reign of Queen Anne that the law officers began to require that 
specifications should be filed before letters patent were issued. But 
the condition was not by any means uniformly or intelligently in¬ 
sisted upon, as will be seen immediately in the case of certain pat¬ 
ent medicines. 
The term ‘patent medicines’ as now popularly used, means gen¬ 
erally secret medicines, and the meaning is therefore in exact con¬ 
tradiction to the expression. Truthfully to declare the composi¬ 
tion of many of these proprietary compounds would ruin their 
sale. Not that the ingredients are often improper or injurious; 
this rarely occurs; but because the success of these remedies in 
most instances is rather on the mystery with which the maker can 
surround them than on their exceptional merit. 
But some old medicines which became popular, including a few 
the reputation of which lives today, were actually patented. The 
first compound medicine for which a patent was granted under the 
Act of 1624 was No. 888, and was dated October 22, 1711. It was 
granted to Timothy Byfield for his sal oleosum volatile, ‘which 
