Blog | curesalldiseases

Jeremy Kemp

Sep 297 min read

Bottles 5: Daffy's Elixir, Part 1.

This article gives an overview of the evolution of Daffy's Elixir bottles during the long lifetime of the medicine, from the...

Jeremy Kemp

Jan 11, 20228 min read

Patent Medicines 3: One Daffy's, or four, or 26, or more?

Twenty seven recipes give us twenty-six different medicines, but at least it's possible to say roughly what was in the bottles. Probably.

Jeremy Kemp

Jan 9, 20229 min read

Patent Medicines 2: Will the real Daffy's Elixir please stand up?

In a world where recipes were widely published, could anyone in the 19th century really claim to be the sole manufacturer of the genuine...

Jeremy Kemp

Nov 11, 202112 min read

Patent medicines 1: When is a patent medicine not a patented medicine?

The majority of ‘patent medicines’ on both sides of the Atlantic were not and never had been patented.

Jeremy Kemp

Jan 13, 20218 min read

Stories 1, part IV. Fourteen missing feather beds.

Door-to-door quack doctors were actually a thing. Part IV. Click here for Part I of Door-to-door quacks were actually a thing (She voided...

Jeremy Kemp

Jan 10, 20218 min read

Stories 1, part III. William Kirk was a new woman.

Well, THAT was careless.

Jeremy Kemp

Oct 26, 20208 min read

Bottles 4. John Lynch, Duke Street, St James's, circa 1812 - 1829.

Another 'medicine' from an unlikely source: this time a West Indian slave who gained his freedom in late Georgian England.

Oct 25, 20208 min read

Bottles 3: Cabburn (Cabburn’s Anti-Doloric Oil, Cabburn’s Balsam of Herbs), 1840 - circa 1920s.

Cabburn's Anti-Doloric Oil was invented in 1840 by a publican and Wine & Spirit merchant, John Francis Bricknell Cabburn.

Oct 3, 20209 min read

Bottles 2. Jesuit's Drops, 1755 - circa 1860s.

On 29th October 1755 a patent was granted to Robert Walker of London for "A new invented medicine, called Jesuit's drops ...".

Jeremy Kemp

Sep 30, 202012 min read

Bottles 1. Turlington's Balsam of Life: the 1754 design.

"BY THE KING's ROYALL PATENT GRANTED TO ROBt TURLINGTON FOR HIS INVENTED BALSAM OF LIFE. LONDON. JANy 26 1754." Turlington used at least thr

Jeremy Kemp

Aug 21, 20206 min read

Stories 1, part II. Hezekiah Bowling was a happy man.

Hezekiah was a veteran of the travelling quack business, having been on the road (but not on the run) for most of the last ten years

Aug 18, 20205 min read

Stories 1, part I. She voided a frog, a newt and two worms.

On a Tuesday night in May a "GANG of dangerous IMPOSTERS" were apprehended, "some of them with quack medicines".