century Darby and his
predecessors had been marketing this self-same product, and it had
proved to be "the one and only unrivall'd and most efficacious Remedy
ever yet discovered, against the whole force of Diseases and Accidents
that await Mankind...." For the Bettons to appropriate the process and
patent it--and even to claim in their advertising cures which really
had been wrought by the Darby product--was scandalous. Worse than that,
said Darby, it was illegal, for in 1693 William III had granted a
patent to "Martin Eele and two others at his Nomination for making the
same Sort of Oyl from the same Sort of Materials." Evidence to
substantiate his belief in the Betton perfidy was presented by Darby to
George II, who had the matter duly investigated.[10] Being persuaded
that Darby was right, the king and his councillors, in 1745, vacated
the Betton patent. This victory seems not to have boomed the Darby
interests, and this defeat seems not to have ruined the Bettons. During
the succeeding century, the Betton patent was published and republished
in advertising, just as if it had never fallen afoul the law. From
their battles with the Oil from Coalbrook-Dale and other British Oils
marketed by other proprietors, the Bettons emerged triumphant. In the
years to come, patent or no, the Bettons British Oil was to dominate
the field.

[8] Michael and Thomas Betton, "Oil for the cure of rheumatic and
scorbutic affections," British patent 587, August 14, 1742.

[9] Edmund Darby & Co., _Directions for taking inwardly and using
outwardly the company's true genuine and original British Oil;
prepared by Edmund Darby & Co. at Coalbrook-Dale, Shropshire_,
ca. 1745. An 8-page pamphlet preserved in the Library of the
College of Physicians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[10] _London Gazette_, London, March 1, 1745.

The year after the Bettons had secured their patent, another was
granted to John Hooper of Reading for the manufacture of "Female Pills"
bearing his name.[11] Hooper was an apothecary, a man-midwife, and a
shrewd fellow. This was the period in which the British Government was
increasing its efforts to require the patentee to furnish precise
specifications with his application.[12] When Hooper was called upon to
tell what was in his pills and how they were made, he replied by
asserting that they were composed "Of the best purging stomatick and
anti-hysterick ingredients," wh