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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 11, 20228 min read
261 views
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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
Nov 11, 202112 min read
115 views


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 13, 20218 min read
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Stories 1, part III. William Kirk was a new woman.
Well, THAT was careless.
Jeremy Kemp
Jan 10, 20218 min read
85 views
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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.
Jeremy Kemp
Oct 26, 20208 min read
138 views
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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 25, 20208 min read
185 views
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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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Oct 3, 20209 min read
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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
Sep 30, 202012 min read
2,188 views
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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
Jeremy Kemp
Aug 21, 20206 min read
181 views
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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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Aug 18, 20205 min read
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