The Quack Doctor

Minneapolis Journal, 8 Nov 1901

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The Omega Oil company, which had London and US branches, had its work cut out to get the product noticed among pages of attractive pictorial adverts. But get noticed they did. The constant flow of new designs together with the unique selling point – It’s green – helped create a long-lasting brand. And there really are loads of ad designs. The ones shown here are just examples, but illustrate the theme – real people use this product.

Some ads invited the reader to send off for a ‘thrilling pamphlet’ that told the story of the liniment’s European origins. This story also appeared in some newspapers.

An un-named American businessman, who is presumably the company’s proprietor, Michael Winburn, relates the tale of his holiday in Paris, where his wife falls out of a carriage and breaks her ankle. After weeks of ineffective medical treatment, the couple remove to a quiet village in Switzerland where a local woman says she knows what will help:

…we waited a day, and the next morning the woman came with a queer-looking green oil in a bottle. This she rubbed on my wife’s ankle. In about two hours, my wife said—
‘Why, my foot feels all right now,’ and she stood up and walked.

Minneapolis Journal 20 March 1901

The narrator eventually persuades the woman’s grandfather to sell him the recipe, and on his return to America, has it analysed by a chemist who pronounces it ‘the best preparation he had ever seen in his life for curing pain.’ The secret ingredient proves to be a rare herb that grows only in a certain part of Switzerland.

On his next European travels, our hero comes down with a terrible cold – his wife remembers the bottle of green oil, rubs some on his chest and in two hours he’s fine. Their little girl’s tonsilitis disappears just as quickly. They realise they have a wonder-product on their hands and resolve to bring it to the attention of sufferers everywhere – apparently investing a lot of cash in setting up the business. The investment paid off. This and Winburn’s other company, Cadum Soap,  made him a millionaire.

‘It is no more like other liniments’ says the narrator, ‘than high noon is like midnight.’

Minneapolis Journal 28 Nov 1901

The miraculous little green herb was possibly henbane, but fortunately it was in very small quantities – the main ingredients were chloroform, oil of wintergreen and mineral oil. Oil of wintergreen (methyl salicylate) is still a component of deep-heat liniments today and I imagine that sufferers did feel the benefit of this sweet-smelling emerald liquid. It got on the wrong side of the FDA in 1942, when it was judged misbranded because of the exaggerated claims, but this didn’t kill off the product – it is still available in some countries today. Cadum Soap, meanwhile, went on to become a major French company who are now so very cool, hip and trendy that they even have flash and music on their homepage.

Leeds Mercury 13 June 1900

Winburn died in 1930 and his widow married Edouard Renard, who later became the Governor General of French Equatorial Africa. The couple came to a sticky end when their plane crashed in the Congo jungle in 1935. Mme Renard’s jewel case, with contents estimated at $390,000, disappeared. The bodies lay for days among the wreckage, until the bits that hadn’t been eaten by wild animals were found and shipped back to France.

And now for something completely different…

We leap forward into the 1950s today with this Public Service Announcement from the US Food and Drug Administration. The presenter is actor Raymond Massey and his advice is all too relevant today.

‘There are no Z-rays’ is undoubtedly the best line of the film, but it’s quite difficult to catch the name of the device. It was called a Zerret Applicator, was made of plastic, and though you can’t tell from the video, the stripes were blue and white.

The applicator was supposed to contain a mysterious Z-ray-emitting fluid called Zerret water. It would set you back $50, and to use it you had to hold it in both hands, making sure all your fingers were in contact with it and that your legs were uncrossed. This must be done three times a day for 15 minutes and would help arthritis, rheumatism, diarrhoea, constipation, excess weight and abnormal thinness, as well as a variety of other conditions.

Z-Rays were ‘a force unknown to science’ (this at least was true) and worked by expanding the hydrogen atoms of the body. The instruction booklet went into further detail:

When you hold the Applicator, it works on your life current, expanding the atoms of the same. As this takes place, it expands all atoms of your being. Expansion of your atoms produces what is commonly called relaxation.

The manufacturer, William Ferguson, also claimed that life rays from the body flowed into the Zerret, were rejuvenated and invigorated, then flowed back into the body. The police weren’t convinced, and arrested him and his sales director, Mary Stanakis, together with saleswoman Elay Smith, in September 1948. They were charged with operating a confidence game and conspiracy to defraud. In court, they were supported by a number of satisfied customers, who insisted that the Zerret had cured them. Some admitted, however, that after purchasing the device they, like Smith, had signed up as agents, earning $25 commission on each sale.

Judge Charles Dougherty said: ‘I think you’re all suckers, but I’ll keep an open mind.’ He adjourned the case while the Zerret was analysed. The composition of the devices varied – of three samples investigated, one contained paraffin-soaked cotton, another dry cotton, and the third contained water.

The case continued for over a year, but in May 1950, Ferguson and Stanakis were convicted. Ferguson was sentenced to two years in jail, Stanakis to one year. Most of the devices were destroyed, with a couple being retained for museum display and for starring in PSAs.

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Source: The Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 31 December 1892

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I’ve decided to have a go at doing a podcast. It’s about 13 mins long and goes into much more detail than the post below, so if you’ve got time, do have a listen. If for some reason you desperately want to download it, you can do so here by right-clicking on the player thingy.

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The Electric Corset was sold by Cornelius Bennett Harness, proprietor of the Ammoniaphone. His Medical Battery Company’s main product was the ‘electropathic’ belt, which contained zinc and copper plates that were somehow supposed to generate a health-giving current.

The Electric Corset was magnetic rather than electric, because all it had was a magnetised steel busk (the plates at the front that attach together to fasten the corset). Harness was initially a distributor for the famous American invention, Dr Scott’s Electric Corset (which Lidian at The Virtual Dime Museum has blogged about here). By 1891, however, he was selling his own version out of his opulent premises in Oxford Street.

A supposed visitor to this ‘Electropathic and Zander Institute’ described it as follows:

It seemed to me that I was standing in a Temple of silence. Outside was the rush and roar of London life. Inside, all was calm and peaceful. The interior, in its blend of colours and graceful hangings, and its rich carpeting, reminds one of Oriental times. The attendants move so softly and speak so gently. Here and there, young women, in neat print dresses and caps, move gracefully about. You yourself feel hushed and awed, as if some magician were about to appear.

The excerpt is from the Pall Mall Gazette (August 5 1892), and continues in a gushing manner about the numerous diplomas on display in Mr Harness’s consulting room. Although presented as a feature article, the piece turns out to be an advert, and was an attempt to cover up the fact that the company was in trouble.

Earlier that year, a customer named Mr Jeffrey had consulted the company’s hernia specialist (a former salesman of Oriental furniture). He was prescribed an electropathic belt but later consulted a doctor and got fitted with a proper truss. He refused to pay the balance of £3 3s. on the useless belt. In July 1892 the company sued him but lost, and had to give back the £2 2s. he had already paid. Harness had occasionally got into similar situations over the past few years, but this was really the start of a slippery slope for his electropathic empire.

In reporting the case, the Electrical Review described Harness’s activities as ‘one of the grossest cases of misrepresentation of the present day.’

In response, Harness sent a circular to newsagents warning them that he would hold them responsible for these ‘malicious libels’ should they continue to sell the Electrical Review. Many, including W.H. Smith & Co., did stop selling it, so the periodical’s owners took Harness to court and were granted damages of £1000.

In October 1893, the Pall Mall Gazette stopped accepting advertisements from the Medical Battery Company and printed a series of articles headed ‘The Harness “Electropathic” Swindle’, which stated:

The Medical Battery Company has for years past been fattening on a system of fraud and imposture which is absolutely unequalled in the annals of swindling.

Harness himself (pictured below) it described as:

… a man of no pretensions whatever to scientific or medical knowledge, but [is] a common, illiterate and unscrupulous charlatan.’

The articles resulted in a lot of customers demanding their money back. In early November 1893, he and his business associate, Dr James McCully (originally a qualified physician but struck off the Medical Register), were arrested and charged with unlawfully conspiring to defraud.

Dr McCully was found not guilty but the jury couldn’t agree about Harness. The courts ordered that the company be wound up. Almost immediately, Harness tried to resurrect it as the Medical Electrical Institute and was allowed to do so on condition that it was under control of a qualified medic. The creditors and shareholders of the old company unanimously agreed that it should go ahead, and Mr Harness became manager of the new company on a salary of £600 a year.

The trouble was that in spite of considerable advertising, no one would buy the products. Within a few months he went bust. After that, Harness faded into obscurity, dying in 1921 at Christchurch.

MR. ELIAS GROVES, of Clapham, attests, that he was afflicted upwards of a Year and half with a most violent windy Disorder, to so great a Degree, that the Wind would roll about, as it were, all over his Body, and occasion him frequently to be discharging it in a surprising Manner out of his Mouth for ten Hours together. This most grievous Complaint wasted him away as if in an Atrophy, and cause a great Sinking of his Spirits: He had the Advice, and followed the Prescriptions of two eminent Physicians, (as he can make it appear) as well as others, without the least Benefit, until he took Dr. Lowther’s Powders and Drops, the joint Use of which in a short Time entirely remov’d his Complaints.
These Powders and Drops (for the great Invention of which his Majesty honoured Dr. Lowther with his Royal Letters Patent, November 1757) are sold in Six Shilling and Three Shilling Parcels, at Brooke’s Warehouse, Fleet-Street, and Dawson’s Warehouse the foot of Westminster-Bridge; at which last place the Doctor may be consulted gratis every Tuesday from Three to Five, and Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from Ten to One, at Brooke’s.
These Powders and Drops are incontestably proved to be the greatest Specific ever invented for the Cure of every Species of Fits, Nervous and Paralytick Disorders. Sold also by Mr. Marlow, at the Angel and Crown Tavern, Tunbridge-Wells, as the Waters of that Place are known to be very powerful Deobstruents, by their Chalybeat Virtues. These Powders may be taken in them to great Advantage.

Source: The Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer, 8-11 July 1758

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This advert is quite restrained by William Lowther’s standards – he only mentions the King’s Letters Patent once. Elsewhere he drew even more attention to this supposedly great honour, and called the drops the ‘Royal Specific Anodyne Drops.’ Although references to the patent can come across as a bit pompous, Lowther wasn’t alone in using this method of convincing punters that the medicine was respectable. It was common for vendors to do so, and there was no reason why they shouldn’t, although they were perhaps disingenous in implying that the monarch was a personal fan of the product. The king didn’t need to have tried the remedy – patents were granted for all sorts of things, and although the inventor had to provide a written specification of how the medicine was produced, there was no requirement to prove that it worked or even that it was safe.

The ‘Dawson’s Warehouse’ referred to was a carpet warehouse, and in 1757 Dr Lowther’s Tuesday schedule involved hot-footing it over there from Brooke’s in Fleet Street, in time to start his consultations at 2pm. In 1758 he began giving himself an extra hour – perhaps he needed time to grab something to eat on the way.

Although the Powders (patented before the Drops, in June 1755) were also advertised as an anti-epileptic medicine, there was a considerable list of disorders they claimed to help, as related in the London Gazette in June 1757 (spellings and punctuation as in original):

Tremblings, Faintings, Swoonings, Sick Qualms, Reachings, Loathings, lost Appetites, bad Digestion, weak Nerves, Flutterings, Palpitations, Anxieties, confused Thoughts, Lethargies, dull melancholic Dispositions, Vapours, low Spirits, Restlessness, Weariness, Frightful Dreams, Pains in the Head and Stomach, Vertigo’s, Swimings, Giddiness, Dizziness, Dimness, Flushings, the Cramp, Contractions, sudden Catchings, Obstructions, disorders incident to the Fair Sex, and, in fine, the whole train of Fits, Nervous and Paralitic Complaints.

In 1771 Lowther published a pamphlet called A Dissertation on the Dropsy; distinguishing the different species of dropsy, the various causes of the disorder, and the most effectual method of cure. The Monthly Review‘s verdict (shown here in its entirety) was rather dismissive:

This dissertation is full of hard words and cramp phrases, and is written with a view to celebrate the great and unknown virtues of Dr. Lowther’s diuretic drops.

Lowther’s medicine was still well-known enough in the 1780s to warrant it a place in a satirical poem about newspapers, published in The Town and Country Magazine:

Here puffing empirics, in a pompous style
Excite “the passing tribute of a smile”

In Lowther’s far-famed powders you will find
(Forget not those which are prepar’d by Hinde)
Virtues most potent, powerful to cure
The worst diseases men can here endure
Whoe’er on them will, confident, rely
May Death’s dragoons for numerous years defy.

Just a quick post today while I languish on my sickbed without any useful remedies to console me.

Following on from a previous post about the Bile Beans for Biliousness, Jane Ellen, Senior Archivist at the University of Melbourne Archives kindly sent me this image, probably from the 1930s. It looks as though it was in-store advertising and, like other adverts for this product, shows an amusing juxtaposition of radiant beauty and, well… the name Bile Beans. The way the Beans acted to produce such a lovely figure is as unappealing as their title – they ‘ensure[d] that regular elimination so essential to your wellbeing.’

I’ve dug out the text of another advert for Bile Beans – this one (below) is from The Argus, Melbourne, 16 April 1945. (N.B. The original doesn’t have a question mark for the first sentence either.) Aimed squarely at women and pitched more as a food supplement than a medicine, this is a contrast to the product’s early advertising, which targeted both sexes and claimed that the Beans were effective against some quite serious diseases.

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Why shouldn’t you be Radiant & Attractive

THAT inner well-being, the bright eyes, clear complexion and the sparkle that go with it are just a matter of nightly routine – the results which Bile Beans surely bring.
Purely vegetable, Bile Beans–just one or two taken regularly at bedtime, build up good health and good digestion while you sleep. They tone you up, cleanse and regulate the system. They improve your appearance and your outlook on life.
Bright eyes, cheeriness, personal fitness are grand assets these days. They can be yours all through the year if you

Start To-night with Bile Beans

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Source: The Syracuse Herald (NY) 7 Sept 1919

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Every Woman needs a Vibrator
La Vida $7.50

The Vibrator EVERY Woman Needs
There comes a new world, a generous world of abundant health, of comfort, of beauty measured by long years—when La Vida enters in.

To own La Vida is every woman’s right—it costs so little; it brings such rich results.
La Vida is essentially a woman’s vibrator; no parts to get out of order. La Vida fits into your hand snugly; it is small light, compact.
Make La Vida a part of your home, for your own health, pleasure and satisfaction—for the good of your family.
Your La Vida is waiting for you now here at our store. We want to give you the new free Health and Beauty Booklet.

La Vida Electric Vibrator

It is the rapidity of the action—not the force of the blow—that produces the most successful results from vibration.
No other vibrator is so rapid, no other gives such quick health-building action, as La Vida. This marvelous little cheery “home comfort” brings to you continuously the highest results to be gained by modern scientific vibration.

POWERS DRUG STORE
Formerly Snows, Next to Postoffice
216 SOUTH WARREN STREET
This Store Closes Monday, Syracuse Day, at 12.30 P.M.

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There’s loads of equally snigger-worthy stuff in early 20th-century papers and magazines, often alongside ads for other useful home appliances such as sewing machines. Electric vibrators worked by plugging them into a lightbulb fitting but there were also mechanical hand-powered ones such as the ‘Veedee’; this was promoted at big faith-healer-style lectures where sufferers of a variety of ailments could go up on stage and apparently be cured at once. For photos of such gadgets, have a look at the Antique Vibrator Museum.

While some brands, like the La Vida, were presented as beauty products, using facial massage to increase circulation and improve the complexion, others were marketed as health products for all the family. They claimed to help such diverse problems as rheumatism, obesity, deafness, hay fever, lung complaints, piles and chilblains, and were very much aimed at men as well as women.

Ads like the one below, however,  (from The Rotarian, March 1914) make it pretty clear that the manufacturers were aware of vibrators’ more ‘intimate’ potential. In the 1920s they started cropping up in porn, and lost their reputation as a wholesome household appliance.

Source: The Graphic (London) 13 October 1894

I haven’t tried to transcribe this for obvious reasons, but I think it should be clear enough, and you can click to make it bigger. Some of the assertions on the sleeves of those elegant arms sound better than others; ‘touches the spot for hemorrhoids’ doesn’t conjure up a particularly attractive image, but an accurate one nonetheless. For stubborn cases, suppositories were available, and one advert cheerfully announced to the world that Lord Carrick was indebted to Homocea for the cure of his piles.

Homocea and its tagline ‘touches the spot’ became a household name in the last years of the 19th century and it was certainly still around during World War II, if not later. As well as the original ointment, there was a strong form called Exaino or Homocea Fort, and a Homocea Soap. In 1897 the Soap and its related product, the Hair Wash, were highly recommended in The Nursing Record and Hospital World, which said that the soap was ‘very soothing and softening in its action, and is very fragrant and pleasant, moreover, to use.’

The BMA’s More Secret Remedies reported in 1912 that the ointment comprised a large proportion of eucalyptus oil, small amounts of lemon oil and ammonia, beeswax, lard and coconut oil. The 2s. 9d. tin contained 2 ½oz, the cost of ingredients being about 2 ½d.

Homocea Ltd certainly went in for eye-catching advertisements. The one below is from The Graphic in 1895. The lifeless body of the poor faithful little dog, who only moments ago was trotting happily along the path day-dreaming of chasing rabbits, adds a certain level of drama that we could probably have done without.

P.S. I’m scheduling this post to appear on Monday 12 Oct. I’m not actually here as I’m speaking at Chester Literature Festival, so if the post doesn’t come out right, I’ll fix it when I get home on Tuesday.

Googling for info on this remedy will get you quite a few results giving some variant on:

“Dr.” Sibley, an English patent medicine seller of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, even went so far as to claim that his Reanimating Solar Tincture would, as the name implies, “restore life in the event of sudden death”.

I just added to that number by quoting good ol’ Wikipedia there, but I was quite surprised at the number of times this information is repeated across the web, because:

a.) He was called Sibly, not Sibley. It sounds nit-picky to point this out, but I think it’s important because it doesn’t take an awful lot of effort to verify it, and yet that effort is clearly too much for some. I like Wikipedia – it’s a useful resource as a starting point, but come on people – a few seconds of further investigation aren’t going to bring on, well… sudden death or anything.

b.) He did have an actual medical degree, hence no need for scare-quotes round the word “Dr.” Ebenezer Sibly appears in Officers and Graduates of University & King’s College, Aberdeen MVD-MDCCCLX as having received his MD in 1792. He probably paid for it, but so did many reputable doctors of the time. He was also a well-read and prolific writer on medicine and astrology, on which see A G Debus’ paper, Scientific Truth and occult tradition: the Medical World of Ebenezer Sibly.

So, did Dr. Sibly claim to be able to restore life? At face value, yes – the claim quoted on Wikipedia was indeed the headline used on some of his early ads in the 1790s:

RESTORATION of LIFE in CASES of SUDDEN DEATH.—For this benevolent purpose, Dr. SIBLY’s RE-ANIMATING SOLAR TINCTURE, supersedes every art and invention. In all circumstances of suicide, or sudden death, whether by blows, fits, falls, suffocation, strangulation, drowning, apoplexy, thunder and lightning, assassination, duelling, &c., immediate recourse should be had to this medicine, which will not fail to restore life, provided the organs and juices are in a fit disposition for it, which they undoubtedly are much oftener than is imagined. Let me, therefore, entreat an anxious perseverance in this sublimest of all charities—the attempt to recover perishing lives. Upon all such emergencies, Dr. Sibly will be ready to attend the meanest individual; and in the interim he begs to call the attention of all persons to this Medicine, who labour under any disorders arising from an unwholesome state of the air; whose blood has been contaminated by hot climates or scrophulous taints; whose enfeebled constitutions require immediate aid. They will find it an infallible, and almost immediate cure.
Sold, by the Doctor’s appointment, at Mr. Williams’s, perfumer to his Majesty, No. 41, Pall-mall; at Mevin’s perfumery warehouse, No. 72, New Bond-street; at the Doctor’s house, in Titchfield-street, Cavendish-square; and at the British directory-office, Ave Maria-lane, St. Paul’s price 13s the large, and 7s 6d. the small bottles, duty included.
N.B. A Treatise on the virtues and efficacy of the Medicine may be had gratis where it is sold.

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Source: The Times, Monday 4 March 1793

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Taken in isolation, the claims are amusingly far-fetched. When you consider, however, the difficulty of determining death, and the contemporary anecdotes about people waking up on the point of burial, they are not as ridiculous as they sound. The advert does clarify that the medicine will work “provided the organs and juices are in a fit disposition for it,” (i.e. still alive!) and subsequently refers to ‘perishing’ rather than ‘perished’ lives. I don’t believe for a moment that the medicine was much good, but the idea behind it is no more outlandish than that of the charitable societies that were being established to rescue people apparently dead from drowning.

Horror stories abounded about people being mistakenly buried alive, and while this issue had not yet reached the level of obsession that it did during the 19th century, it was a genuine and understandable fear for many.

An anonymous correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine on July 20 1790 wrote:

It cannot be too much recommended to the world not to be in a hurry to bury their friends and relations. We find that by the assiduities of the Humane Society many persons, apparently dead, have been restored to life…

In short, Mr Urban, it is greatly to be feared that many unfortunate people have actually been buried alive. No man, of the least humanity, can think of such a thing without the utmost horror. I have heard lately of such an unhappy and miserable circumstance.”

Unfortunately (or, rather, fortunately) he doesn’t go on to relate the tale, but calls for legislation to ensure that bodies would not be buried until they showed visible signs of decomposition. A remedy that promised to allay such fears was onto a winner.

After Sibly’s death in 1799 or 1800, his successor, J R Saffell, did not assign the tincture any outright life-restoring properties, saying only that it had “restored multitudes, who were on the verge of the grave, to health.”  The medicine was still on sale in the 1870s.

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Image of Ebenezer Sibly courtesy of Wellcome Images.

Far from being a quack remedy, this device must have been a boon to desperate travellers everywhere.

Surgical instrument maker William Huntly Bailey, whom we have met before, described the problem:  If there is any inconvenience in travelling on the railway, it is on account of the few stoppages, and no doubt many persons have dated the breaking up of their health from the want of those conveniences which the travellers had in days gone by.

As well as being useful on journeys, the contraptions were used in medicine for patients not mobile enough to get to a bedpan in time, but even in that context they were still commonly referred to as railway urinals. The bag was made of rubber and contained a valve to prevent fluids escaping.

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SPARKS AND SON,
INVENTORS OF THE
INDIA-RUBBER URINALS
For MALE and FEMALE RAILWAY TRAVELLERS,
INVALIDS, and CHILDREN.
These Urinals are made on the most approved principles,
and all are fitted with the recently invented valve, which will
not allow any return of the water by the upper part, by being
placed in any position, and from their improved construction
are better than any similar articles at present in use.
A liberal discount to the Medical Profession. Descriptive
Circulars and Lists of Prices sent per post.
Hospitals, Infirmaries, and Unions, supplied on the best
terms, with every article for the use of the sick and invalided.
SPARKS and SON,
Patent Surgical Truss and Bandage Makers,
28 CONDUIT STREET, NEW BOND STREET,
LONDON

Source: The Chemical News, 7 April 1860

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Railway stations did have basic cast-iron urinals on the platform (see CIBSE’s Heritage website for some examples) but these were a notorious ‘nuisance’ i.e. they stank. They were also unusable by women.  Some stations had ladies’ water closets too, but these were often restricted to first-class passengers, and in any case they weren’t a priority because women’s inequality in society extended to a lack of public provision of conveniences. Surely, the logic went, women weren’t away from home that much, so why cater for those who did want to gad about? And yet the situation worked both ways – the lack of public facilities was one factor actively suppressing women’s mobility and involvement in society outside the home. Even an innocent day out shopping was only for those with a pelvic floor of steel.

The picture in Sparks & Son’s ad shows the male version; it’s fairly self-explanatory how it was worn. For women, the railway urinal looked like this:

The strap at the bottom went round the wearer’s leg to keep the bag in place (male ones had the strap too, though it’s not shown in the ad). Here, ladies could claim a small advantage because it was relatively easy to hide the urinal under a crinoline, but although it was supposedly able to be ‘worn with perfect comfort, either day or night, without being perceived by the closest observer,’ it is difficult to believe that a full one would remain unnoticed under a gentleman’s trousers.

I originally posted this on my (now defunct) other blog before I started The Quack Doctor, so I thought I’d move it over here as not many people will have seen it before:

Are your spirits hurried and your brain in need of comforting? Are you suffering from the effects of hard drinking? Do your parts need warming and invigorating? Look no further. Here’s an 18th-century panacea to combat every possible woe.

The advert below is from an Adams’s Weekly Courant, which  happened to be the main newspaper in Chester during the time my book is set.  The paper was run by Mrs Elizabeth Adams, who took over her husband’s printing business after his death.

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RESTORATIVE VIPER DROPS

THESE Drops have for these twenty Years past, in the Proprietor’s private Practice, proved themselves upon some hundred patients, to be an excellent Medicine, beyond any other Chymical Preparation offered to the Publick within the Compass of his Knowledge.

They restore greatly in weak Habits; strengthen weak Backs, warm and invigorate Parts that are languid and weaken’d by Gleets, or other Injuries; they help Digestion; comfort a cold Stomach, and expel Wind both from thence and the Bowels; they remedy the effects of hard Drinking; cleanse the Ureters from slimy and sabulous matter, thereby taking away Gravel pains in the back; compose hurry’d spirits, and take off Flutterings and Lowness, comforting the Brain and causing Chearfulness; they are a noble Balsamick also for all outward Bruises and Wounds, consolidating the Part injured, almost instantly; cure Burns or Scaldings, if immediately applied, in a surprising Manner, and without leaving disagreeable Marks or Eschars.

Any Persons by applying to the Proprietor, at his Shop, will be directed to People of undoubted Credit, who will satisfy them of the great good Effects of these Drops, in the above Cases, for which they are recommended, and in some very dangerous and complicated Disorders, not here inferred, for the sake of brevity.

They are pleasant to take, not giving the least Nausea or Offence to the tenderest stomach.

They are sold in bottles of Three Shillings, with the Cypher and Inscription, as here in the Margin, and in Eighteen-penny Bottles, at the Chymist’s Shop, the Golden Head and Key, at the corner of Bell Savage Gateway, Ludgate-Hill; at Mr Jefferys’s Bookseller, in Pope’s-Head Alley, Cornhill; and also at the Printer’s of this paper.

And for the real Excellence of this Medicine, and its absolute Difference from some Things called VIPER DROPS, any Persons may satisfy themselves, by coming to his Shop, with a Lump of Sugar at any Time, and have a proper Dose of them gratis, for their Satisfaction and Benefit.

At the above Places may be had, The PATENT ANTIVENEREAL ELECTUARY, Price Six Shillings in the Pot, with Directions.

Source: Adams’s Weekly Courant (Chester) 13 August 1754

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“Dr” Richard Rock was a high-profile quack whose usual stomping-ground was Covent Garden – as shown in Hogarth’s The Four Times of the Day (Morning) where his products are being advertised on a billboard (difficult to see in the picture here, but it’s just above the page’s head to the left of the scene). Although the advertising copy refers exclusively to London, Rock probably used the printers of the Weekly Courant and other provincial newspapers as distributors.

If the Viper Drops had lived up to all their claims, there would have been no need for Chester Infirmary to be set up a year later, and I would have had to find something else to write a book about.