href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@30162@[email protected]#note8" id="noteref8" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">⁸ This Betton patent aroused one of their rivals, Edmund Darby & Co. of Coalbrook-Dale in Shropshire. Darby asserted that it was presumptuous of the Bettons to call their British oyl a new invention.⁹ For over a century Darby and his predecessors had been marketing this self-same product, and it had proved to be "the one and only unrivall'd and most efficacious Remedy ever yet discovered, against the whole force of Diseases and Accidents that await Mankind...." For the Bettons to appropriate the process and patent it—and even to claim in their advertising cures which really had been wrought by the Darby product—was scandalous. Worse than that, said Darby, it was illegal, for in 1693 William III had granted a patent to "Martin Eele and two others at his Nomination for making the same Sort of Oyl from the same Sort of Materials." Evidence to substantiate his belief in the Betton perfidy was presented by Darby to George II, who had the matter duly investigated.¹⁰ Being persuaded that Darby was right, the king and his councillors, in 1745, vacated the Betton patent. This victory seems not to have boomed the Darby interests, and this defeat seems not to have ruined the Bettons. During the succeeding century, the Betton patent was published and republished in advertising, just as if it had never fallen afoul the law. From their battles with the Oil from Coalbrook-Dale and other British Oils marketed by other proprietors, the Bettons emerged triumphant. In the years to come, patent or no, the Bettons British Oil was to dominate the field.

The year after the Bettons had secured their patent, another was granted to John Hooper of Reading for the manufacture of "Female Pills" bearing his name.¹¹ Hooper was an apothecary, a man-midwife, and a shrewd fellow. This was the period in which the British Government was increasing its efforts to require the patentee to furnish precise specifications with his application.¹² When Hooper was called upon to tell what was in his pills and how they were made, he replied by asserting that they were composed "Of the best purging stomatick and anti-hysterick ingredients," which were formed into pills the size of a small pea. This satisfied the royal agents and Hooper went on about his business. In an advertisement of the same year, he was able to cite as a witness to his patent the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury.¹³

Much less taciturn than Hooper about the composition of his nostrum was Robert Turlington, who secured a patent in 1744 for "A specifick balsam, called the balsam of life."¹⁴ The Balsam contained no less than 27 ingredients, and in his patent specifications Turlington asserted that it would cure kidney and bladder stones, cholic, and inward weakness. He shortly issued a 46-page pamphlet in which he greatly expanded the list.¹⁵ In this appeal to 18th-century sensibilities, Turlington asserted that the "Author of Nature" has provided "a Remedy for every Malady." To find them, "Men of Learning and Genius" have "ransack'd" the "Animal, Mineral and Vegetable World." His own search had led Turlington to the Balsam, "a perfect Friend to Nature, which it strengthens and corroborates when weak and declining, vivifies and enlivens the Spirits, mixes with the Juices and Fluids of the Body and gently infuses its kindly Influence into those Parts that are most in Disorder."

Figure 3.—Label for Stoughton's Elixir as manufactured by Dr. Jos. Frye of Salem, Massachusetts. (Courtesy, Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.)

Testimonials from those who had felt the kindly influence took up most of the space in Turlington's pamphlet. In these grateful acknowledgments to the potency of the patent medicine, the list of illnesses cured stretched far beyond the handful named in the patent specifications. Just as for Bateman's Pectoral Drops and the Darby brand of British Oil, workers of many occupations solemnly swore that they had received benefit. Most of them were humble people—a porter, a carpenter, the wife of a gardener, a blanket-weaver, a gunner's mate, a butcher, a hostler, a bodice-maker. Some bore a status of greater distinction: there were a "Mathematical Instrument-Maker" and the doorkeeper of the East India Company. All were jubilant at their restored good health.

The Balsam's well-nigh sovereign power could not protect it from one ailment of the times, competition. Various preparations of similar composition, like Friar's Balsam, already were on the market, but before long even the Turlington name was trespassed upon, and the inventor's niece was forced to advertise that she alone had the true formula and that any person who took a dose of the spurious imitations being offered did so at great hazard to his life.

A quarter of a century after the patenting of the Balsam, there appeared for sale to British ailing a remedy called Dr. Steer's Celebrated Opodeldoc. Dr. Steer is a shadowy rider of a vigorous steed, for although the doctor has left but a faint personal impact upon the historical record, Opodeldoc has pranced through medical history since the time of Paracelsus. This 16th-century continental chemist-physician, who introduced many mineral remedies into the materia medica, had coined the word "opodeldoc" to apply to various medical plasters. In the two ensuing centuries the meaning had changed, and the Pharmacopoeia Edinburgensis of 1722 employed the term to designate soap liniment. It is presumed that Dr. Steer appropriated the Edinburgh formula, added ammonia, and marketed his proprietary version. In 1780, a London paper carried an advertisement listing the difficulties for which the Opodeldoc was a "speedy and certain cure." These included bruises, sprains, burns, cuts, chillblains, and headaches. Furthermore, the remedy had been "found of infinite Use in hot Climates for the Bite of venomous Insects."¹⁶ Dr. Steer seems not to have secured a patent for his slightly modified version of an official preparation. He died in 1781, but Opodeldoc, indeed Steer's Opodeldoc, went marching on.