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Patent Medicines: An Early Example of Competitive Marketing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

James Harvey Young
James Harvey Young
Affiliation:
Emory University
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Extract

Patent medicines in the United States played a pioneering role in marketing. The nostrum manufacturer, during the early decades of the nineteenth century, exploited a brand name and developed a distinctive symbol as a trademark. His wares were sold in a package of distinctive shape or design. He sought to achieve as national a market as transportation conditions permitted. His advertising appeared in newspapers of all regions, appealing to citizens to buy from local retailers an article made hundreds of miles away. In a highly competitive market, the remedy promoter was forced to explore in his advertising a wide variety of psychological lures.

Type
The Penetrative Power of the Price System
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1960 , pp. 648 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1960

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References

1 These developments are described in Griffenhagen, George B. and Young, James Harvey, “Old English Patent Medicines in America,” Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology (United States National Museum Bulletin 218, Smithsonian Institution: Washington, 1959). 155–83Google Scholar.

2 Jonathn Waldo, Apothecary account book, Library of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

3 Mass. Supreme Court, Thomson vs. Winchester, March 1837, 19 Pick (Mass.) p. 214.

4 Philadelphia Gazette, Oct. 17 and 31, 1745; Aug. 19, 1731.

5 Kebler, Lyman F., “United States Patents Granted for Medicines during the Pioneer Years of the Patent Office,” Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, XXIV (June 1935), 486–87;Google ScholarNew York Daily Advertiser, Sept. 18, 1800; Joel, and Post, Jotham, A Catalogue of Drugs, Medicines & Chemicals (New York, 1804)Google Scholar; 1857 catalog of Wilson, Fairbanks & Co., [Boston] Importers and Wholesale Dealers in Drugs and Medicines; Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter, June 20, 1765.

6 Columbian Museum & Savannah Advertiser, Sept. 29, 1802; Lionberger, Isaac, “Advertisements in the Missouri Gazette, 1808–1811,” Missouri Historical Society Collections, VI (1928–1931), 21Google Scholar; Washington National Intelligencer, Jan. 7 and Aug. 7, 1813; the author has a bottle of Swaim's Panacea marketed by a successor company after the enactment of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Law.

7 The material on Dyott is drawn from various newspaper advertisements and from the Philadelphia Annual Advertiser, 1820; Philadelphia Medical Museum, VI (1809), 58–62Google Scholar, and ns 1 (1811), 52–6; England, Joseph W., ed., The First Century of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (Philadelphia: Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, 1922), p. 19;Google ScholarJohns, Carmita de Solms, “Thomas W. Dyott,” Pennsylvania Medical Bulletin, XX (Oct. 1926), 226–34Google Scholar; obituary in Philadelphia Press, Jan. 19,18 61.

8 The Birchall and Owen correspondence, in the author's possession, includes correspondence or printed notices relating to these proprietary manufacturers or agents: John Bull and Co. of Louisville; E. K. Woodward, and James H. McLean of St. Louis; Brinkerhof and Penton of Chicago; Burdsal & Bro. of Cincinnati; Martin and Whitely of Baltimore; J. N. Keeler & Brother, and Dr. H. Swayne of Philadelphia; Lucius S. Comstock, Harcourt, Bradley & Co., C. Morse & Co., and Radway & Co. of New York. The late Harry E. Pratt of the Illinois State Historical Society was authority for the information that Lincoln patronized the store.

9 Cantley, A. C., “Some Facts about Making Patent Medicines,” Chautauquan, XXVII (1898), 390Google Scholar.

10 Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, cited in Cook, James, Remedies and Rackets, The Truth about Patent Medicines Today (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1958), p. 196Google Scholar.

11 An excellent recent summary of the state of American health and medical science during these years is found in Shryock, Richard Harrison, Medicine and Society in America, 1660–1860 (New York: New York University Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

12 Euen, W., An Essay in the Form of a Lecture, on Political and Medical Quackery (Philadelphia, 1843), p. 34;Google ScholarSonnedecker, Glenn and Griffenhagen, George B., “A History of Sugar Coated Pills and Tablets,” Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association (Practical Pharmacy Edition), XVIII (Sept. 1957), 486–8Google Scholar.

13 Mott, Frank L., American Journalism (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1941), 167, 216;Google ScholarNorth, S. N. D., History and Present Condition of the Newspaper and Periodical Press of the United States (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1884), 81, 187, 100–4;Google Scholar Euen, An Essay in the Form of a Lecture, 28; Wakeman, George, “Advertising,” Galaxy, III (Jan. 15, 1867), 203Google Scholar; “Patent Medicines,” House Report No. 52 (30th Congress, 2d session), p. 31.

14 Potter, David, People of Plenty, Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), 166–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Kebler, “United States Patents Granted for Medicines,” pp. 486–87; Wood, George B. and Bache, Franklin, Dispensatory of the United States (10th ed., Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1854). p. 75Google Scholar.

16 The following generalizations are based on a study of patent medicine advertising in newspapers, brochures, and handbills.

17 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Medical Essays, 1842–1882 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1891), p. 87Google Scholar.

18 Dr. Brandreth's Vegetable Universal Pills; Purgation: or the Brandrethian Method (New York, 1840)Google Scholar.

19 Springfield Illinois State Register and People's Advocate, Sept. 28, 1838.

20 [Maryland], FrederickWeekly Times, Oct. 4, 1832Google Scholar.

21 A copy of the Hercules trademark is in the proof-books of wood engraver Alexander Anderson in the New York Public Library.

22 Vandalia [Illinois] Sentinel, Mar. 14, 1840.

23 Examples are Holmes, Medical Essays, pp. 1–102, 173–208; Ticknor, Caleb, A Popular Treatise on Medical Philosophy; or, An Exposition of Quackery and Imposture in Medicine (New York, 1838)—this was a Phi Beta Kappa oration;Google ScholarMorgan, John, A Warning against Quackery (Boston, 1851);Google ScholarSteiner, Lewis H., Oration before the Medical and Surgical Society of Baltimore (Baltimore, 1859)Google Scholar.

24 A vivid example of this alibi appeared in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Sept. 26, 1836.

25 Hower, Ralph M., The History of an Advertising Agency: N. W. Ayer & Son at Work., 1869–1949 (Revised ed., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949), 44–6, 91–3;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHopkins, Claude C., My Life in Advertising (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927), p. 73Google Scholar.