Before there was an American drug industry there were English nostrums: Bateman’s Pectoral Drops, Godfrey’s Cordial, Turlington’s Balsam of Life, shipped in distinctive bottles and advertised relentlessly. This traces their formulas, their packaging and their long afterlife — including the American copies made once the Revolution cut off supply.
The patent-medicine trade that ran for two hundred years. Download the free EPUB.