A patent medicine, also known as a proprietary medicine or a nostrum (from the Latin nostrum remedium, or "our remedy") is a commercial product advertised to consumers as an over-the-counter medicine, generally for a variety of ailments, without regard to its actual effectiveness or the potential for harmful side effects. The earliest patent medicines were created in the 17th century. They were most popular from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, before the advent of consumer protection laws and evidence-based medicine.[1][2] Despite the name, patent medicines were usually trademarked but not actually patented, in order to keep their formulas secret.[3][4]
Patent medicines often included alcohol and drugs such as opium as active ingredients.[5] Addiction and overdose were common as a result.[6][7] Some formulations included toxic ingredients such as arsenic, lead, and mercury.[8] Other ingredients like sarsaparilla and wintergreen may have been medically inert and largely harmless, but lacked significant medical benefits.[9] It was rare for any patent medication to be pharmacologically effective, and none lived up to the miraculous promises made by their advertising.[9]
Patent medicine advertising was typically outlandish, eye-catching, and had little basis in reality.[10] Advertisements emphasized exotic or scientific-sounding ingredients, featured endorsements from purported experts or celebrities, and often claimed that products were universal remedies or panaceas.[11] Beginning in the early 20th century, the passage of consumer protection laws in countries like the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada began to regulate deceptive advertising and put limits on what ingredients could be used in medicines, putting an end to the dominance of patent medicines.[2][12][13] Although some modern alternative medicines bear similarities to patent medicines, the term most typically refers to remedies created before modern regulations, and the scope of this list reflects that.[14][15][16][17]
Types of patent medicine
1889 lithograph advertisement
Various types of pre-scientific medical preparations, some based on folk or traditional remedies, were sold as patent medicines.[18] Because patent medicines were unscientific and unregulated, the brand names of many products were not necessarily an accurate reflection of their ingredients or preparation methods.
Aphrodisiac: patent medicine advertisements often claimed aphrodisiac effects, the language of which ranged from euphemistic hints at "re-animation" and "potency" to extremely blatant promises of "sexual rejuvenescence."[19][20][21]
Coca wine: an infusion of coca leaves in red wine invented by chemist Angelo Mariani in the 1860s, which later spawned numerous imitators.[24][25][26]
Cordial: a sweetened alcohol-based concoction intended to be stimulating to the heart, often containing numerous herbs; some cordials are now sold non-medically as liqueurs.[18][27]
Elixir: similar to a cordial, an elixir was historically defined as a sweet liquid containing one or more active ingredients, taken as a medical remedy.[18][28]
Panacea: patent medicines were often sold as panaceas, or universal cures.[33]
Snake oil: the archetypal quack remedy, cure-all medicines purportedly made of snake oil were so popular in the 19th century that the phrase is now used as a generic term for hoaxes of all kinds.[34]
Early 20th-century advertisementA bottle of Fernet-Branca herbal liqueur
Some brands from the patent medicine era have survived into the present day, typically with significantly revised formulas and toned-down advertising. Some are still sold as medicines, with more realistic claims and less harmful ingredients. Many others, particularly liquid preparations, have been revised into non-medical food or drink products such as soft drinks.[14]
7 Up: this soft drink was originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda"; it contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug, until 1948.[40]
Coca-Cola: originally marketed as a cure for ailments including morphine addiction and impotence; eventually reformulated as a soft drink without medicinal ingredients.[47]
Dr Pepper: early advertisements for this soft drink made medical claims, stating that it "aids digestion and restores vim, vigor, and vitality."[48][49]
Eno: a brand of fruit salt originally promoted as a cure-all; successfully rebranded in the 1950s as an antacid drug.[29][50]
Fletcher's Laxative: originally sold as Pitcher's Castoria and later Fletcher's Castoria, it was reformulated to remove alcohol and is still sold as a children's laxative.[5]
Hires Root Beer: originally marketed with claims that it could "purify the blood and make rosy cheeks," it is now sold as a non-medicinal soft drink.[49]
Lithia: a brand of lithia water once advertised as a treatment for depression, alcoholism, and low libido, now sold without health claims.[53]
Mentholatum Ointment: introduced in 1894, early advertising focused on the perceived exoticism of menthol by calling it the "Great Japanese Salve Mentholatum".[54]
Pepsi: this popular soft drink was first sold as a digestive aid, and takes its name from the Greek word for digestion.[58]
Sanatogen: sold in the 1920s as a remedy for depression, the brand name persists as a fortified wine, with a label warning that it "does not imply health-giving or medicinal properties."[59]
Smith Brothers Cough Drops: one of the first trademarked products in the United States, the brand disappeared in the 1970s, but was revived in 2016.[60][61]
Zam-Buk: introduced in 1902 with typically exaggerated claims, this ointment is still produced, and is considered a cultural staple in South Africa.[62][63]
Discontinued products
Antique bottles of Daffy's Elixir, Dalby's Carminative and Turlington's Balsam of LifeDr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale PeopleAdvertising poster from about 1890A bottle of Radithor at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History1894 advertisement poster for Vin Mariani, lithograph by Jules Chéret
Antikamnia: supposed pain medication containing acetanilid, which caused several deaths, after which it was reformulated to use the less toxic derivative acetphentidin.[68][69]
Bile Beans: a laxative and tonic first marketed in the 1890s, supposedly able to "disperse unwanted fat" and "purify and enrich the blood".[71][72]
Buffalo Lithia Water: a brand of lithia water found to contain so little lithium that obtaining a therapeutic dose would require consuming at least 150,000 gallons daily.[73]
Chlorodyne: this combination of laudanum, tincture of cannabis, and chloroform was marketed as a cure-all, but frequently caused addiction and overdoses.[7]
Daffy's Elixir: a name used for multiple formulas sold as stomach remedies and cure-alls during the 18th and 19th centuries.[74]
Dalby's Carminative: this opium-based medicine was marketed for calming babies, but was condemned by physicians of the time as potentially fatal to infants.[75]
Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops: an opium solution sold during the 18th to 20th centuries as a remedy for chest and lung ailments.[76]
Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil: the name of this cure-all is a portmanteau of "eclectic" and "electric", referencing the then-current theory that electricity had healing properties.[80]
Godfrey's Cordial: called "Mother's Friend," this laudanum cordial was used to quiet infants, but frequently caused serious or even lethal opium poisoning.[85]
Green's August Flower: a tonic for indigestion often sold with the company's other major product, Dr. Boschee's Syrup, a purported cure for tuberculosis.[86]
Londonderry Lithia: advertised as a cure-all, this brand of lithia water went out of business after government tests found it contained no more than trace amounts of lithium.[96]
Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup: a morphine syrup that remained on the market until 1930, despite claims as early as 1911 that it was potentially lethal to infants.[99][100]
Nine oils: a 19th-century preparation used on both horses and humans; druggists' books sometimes specified recipes, but quack cure salesmen often promoted any kind of oil as the "nine oils".[101][102]
Orvietan: this herbal concoction was used in the 17th and 18th centuries as a panacea against various types of poisoning and other maladies.[103][104]
Soloman's Cordial Balm of Gilead: a famous and expensive remedy exposed as a fraud when its ingredients were discovered to be nothing more than French brandy infused with lemon peel and cardamom seeds.[116][117]
Turlington's Balsam: English merchant Robert Turlington was granted a royal patent for this 27-ingredient preparation in 1744, making it one of the earliest patented medicines.[122][123][124]
Warburg's tincture: an efficacious but now-obsolete remedy for malaria, it was sometimes criticized as a quack remedy until the formula was released in 1875.[127][128][129]
^Loeb, Lori (2001). "Doctors and Patent Medicines in Modern Britain: Professionalism and Consumerism". Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 33 (3): 409–410. doi:10.2307/4053198. ISSN0095-1390. JSTOR4053198. PMID18300407.
^ abCrellin, John K. (2004). A social history of medicines in the twentieth century: to be taken three times a day. New York: Pharmaceutical Products Press. p. 154. ISBN9780789018458.
^Bloom, John (April 1978). "Business: Sweet Revenge". Texas Monthly. Emmis Communications. p. 78. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2019-08-31.
^Crellin, John K. (2004). A social history of medicines in the twentieth century : to be taken three times a day (Reprint. ed.). New York: Pharmaceutical Products Press. p. 154. ISBN9780789018458.
^Everybody's Family Doctor. London, UK: Odhams Press LTD. 1935. p. 7.
^Weir, Archibald (February 15, 1896). "Fatal Case Of Poisoning By A.B.C. Liniment". The British Medical Journal. 1 (1833): 399–400. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.435.399-a. S2CID19739440.
^Richard Reece, 'Bateman's Pectral Drops,' The Monthly Gazette of Health; or Medical Dietetic, Antiempirical, and General Philosophical Journal, Vol. VI, 807.
^Shaw, Robert B. (1972). "History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills". Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology (22): 1–48. doi:10.5479/si.00810258.22.1. hdl:10088/2421. PMID11633173.
^Duncan, Dayton; Burns, Ken (1997). Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. pp. 9–10. ISBN9780679454502.
^Sullivan, Catherine (May 1984). "Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil"(PDF). Parks Canada History. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2020-11-27. Retrieved 2020-02-15.
^Blood, C. L. (1875). "Persecution of New Ideas". Asher & Adams' New Columbian Rail Road Atlas and Pictorial Album of American Industry. Asher & Adams. Archived from the original on December 7, 2019. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
^Sullivan, Jack (May–June 2007). "The Peruna Story: Strumming That Old Catarrh"(PDF). Bottles and Extras. Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors: 28, 31. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2018-12-23. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
^Kelly, Kate (2010). Old World and New: Early Medical Care, 1700–1840. Infobase Publishing. p. 98. ISBN978-0-8160-7208-8.
^Kremers, Edward; Sonnedecker, Glenn (1986). Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy. American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. p. 124. ISBN978-0-931292-17-0.
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