Door-to-door quack doctors were actually a thing. Part I.
In October 1870 Charles Robinson of No 26 Grimsby Lane in Hull, on the east coast of England, placed an order with his printer for handbills to advertise his range of 'purely vegetable' medicines.
In capital letters across the top of each handbill were the words THIS BILL WILL BE CALLED FOR. It was also, apparently, MOST IMPORTANT TO ALL CLASSES OF SOCIETY. (1)
There followed a page and a half of advertisements for 'Robinson's British Herb Pills', 'Botanic Essence for Piles', 'Purifying Drops for Scurvy', 'Gravel Pills and Tincture' and others, along with accounts of a dozen cures performed across the region.
In the centre, in pride of pIace, was an account of the "most miraculous effects" of one of Mr Robinson's medicines on a Mrs Smith from the village of Lund. She had, apparently, "voided a Frog, a Water Asker which is very similar in appearance to a newt, 2 worms, one of which ... was of a very peculiar kind and had a great number of legs", with the slightly unclear implication that passing these had cured her of fits she had been subject to "for a length of time".
Such bills, distributed door-to-door, were a common technique for gaining access to and catching the attention of British householders, and had been used by travelling medicine sellers for at least a hundred years prior to 1870. The names of the doctors on them were often aliases, their advertised addresses false, but in this case Charles Robinson was a real name, and Mr Robinson really did live at No 26 Grimsby Lane in Hull (2).
On the other hand the 'free' medical consultations that the bill advertised - doubtless ending in a prescription for Mr Robinson's own medicines - and the return visit to each household, during which "this bill will be called for", were quite typical of the trade.
Rewind 100 years, to:
1776, Newcastle upon Tyne. On a Tuesday night in May a "GANG of dangerous IMPOSTERS" were apprehended, who had been travelling the country, "some of them with quack medicines [who] by various false pretences, cheat and defraud the unwary." (3).
John and Elizabeth Innes, Thomas Barnie, and Patrick Duncan were the medicine-sellers now "confined in the House of Correction". No details of their medicines is given, but John and Elizabeth Innes had been distributing printed bills door-to-door, in which John was described as "Mr Innes, Dr. practitioner in physic and midwifery" and Elizabeth as "Mrs McDougal, Drs. [doctoress] practitioner in physic and midwifery". Those same handbills claimed that they had "the King's royal authority and letters patent, and to have attained the art and knowledge of curing most curable distempers, and assert their medicines are sovereign remedies."
They would distribute their handbills, according to newspaper accounts, "to the lower set of people, and at houses in country towns and villages, and call for them again". It was during that return visit that the sales pitch for the medicines advertised in the bills would be made.
All four, upon examination, were found to be "great imposters, entirely ignorant both of medicine and diseases. The public (especially the lower classes of people with whom they most generally tamper) are therefore cautioned against the artful insinuations and pretenses of such dangerous pests to the community."
Fast forward just over a year, to:
August 1777, Newcastle upon Tyne. The Newcastle Courant newspaper reported that four"vagrants, pretending to be Doctors" were arrested: James McLayman, a Scottish weaver, and Paul McCann, a Staffordshire hardware peddler, and their wives.
All four were using handbills, distributed door-to-door, printed with claims that they would "cure the various disorders incident to the human body", and with medicines listed and cures described. Unlike Charles Robinson's bills, the names on these were aliases: Mr Pall, Dr. John Montacute, Mr Thomas Monroe, Mrs Mary Steward, Mrs Mary Russell, with "each of the said four bills asserting that the person so named therein "had been born deaf and dumb, but, by God's wisdom, endowed with the extraordinary art and knowledge of curing most curable distempers." (4)
It was natural, continued the article, to conclude "that McLayman and McCann, and their wives, had sometimes, in places where they were not known, feigned themselves to be deaf and dumb, and in that capacity had assumed the characters of extraordinary Doctors and Doctresses, endowed with peculiar gifts of Divine Providence.”
1805: Thirty years later, and the handbills method was still going strong. An Essay on Quackery (5) railed against itinerant doctors "who infest the small towns and villages, leaving their bills, stating "any of these following valuable medicines may be had of the person who will call for this bill", who would then try to persuade people they were afflicted with "various disorders, which a few of their Lozenges, or a bottle of their Elixir, will remove."
Printers as villains?
The writers of the 1776 and 1777 articles in the Newcastle Courant make very clear their opinion of the behind-the-scenes printers of the handbills used by the door-to-door quack doctors.
In 1776:
"It does not appear by whom or where Innes and wife had their bills printed. The Printer, by being unknown, may escape prosecution; but it is not fit that he should escape public censure. Whoever he is, he has ... aided and assisted them to delude the unwary, to cheat people of their money, and rob them of their health." (3)
And, in 1777:
“What then can be said in excuse for those printers, who supply such dangerous imposters with printed bills, plausibly calculated to deceive, and the very means by which they impose on the public, abuse the credulous and unwary, ruin their health, shorten their days, and cheat them of their money?” (4)
Strong words, but how likely is it that the printers of the bills really knew what was going on? In the absence of relevant evidence directly from a printer who was producing such bills it might be open to question. Luckily, as we shall see, there is a small collection of such evidence that reveals, well, pretty much everything about how one group of mid-Victorian door-to-door travelling quacks operated, including their dealings with their printer. Tune in to Door-to-door quack doctors were actually a thing, Part II, Part III, and Part IV coming soon.
Small free-blown bottles (shaped without the use of a mould) similar to these 17th and 18th century British phials would have been a common form of packaging for medicines peddled by itinerant quacks, as well as by apothecaries and druggists, until the early 19th century when moulded bottles first became relatively cheap and easily available. These examples all show a surface patina resulting from many years of burial (private collection).
Notes and References.
(1). This crumbling handbill, 29 x 22cm (12" x 9"), printed on both sides on cheap paper, was acquired several years ago from a seller in Yorkshire. Where it was between 1870 and then, I don't know.
(2). Census return, 1871. Accessed via findmypast.co.uk, 10th February 2020.
(3). The Newcastle Courant, Saturday 25th May 1776. Accessed via britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, 29th November 2019.
(4). The Newcastle Courant, Saturday 13th September 1777. Accessed via britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, 17th November 2017.
(5). Anonymous (probably Thomas Clayton). (1805). Essay on Quackery, and the dreadful consequences arising from taking advertised medicines; illustrated with remarks on their fatal effects: with an account of a recent death occasioned by a quack medicine. Printed by T. Clayton, Hull. 140pp.
© Jeremy Kemp, 2020.
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