Patent medicine | curesalldiseases

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.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 ...".

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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

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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

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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".

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