that she as well as her cousin Anthony had received the
valuable formula. But it was Anthony's line that was to prove the more
persistent. In 1743, one Susannah Daffy advertised the "Original and
Famous Elixir," asserting that she had a brother Anthony who also knew
the secret.[19] This Anthony died in 1750 and willed the formula to his
niece. But there were others outside the family who long had been
making and selling the medicine. For example, the Bow Churchyard
Warehouse advertised Daffy's Elixir in the _London Mercury_ during
1721. Without hiding the fact that others were also compounding this
"safe and pleasant Cordial ... well-known throughout England, where it
has been in great Use these 50 Years," the advertisement concluded:
"Those who make tryalof That sold at this [Bow Churchyard] Warehouse
will never buy anywhere else."[20]
[19] _Ibid._, September 7, 1743.
[20] _London Mercury_, London, August 19-26, 1721.
Although once lauded by a physician to King Charles II, Daffy's Elixir
was never patented. The Elixir invented by Richard Stoughton was, in
1712, the second compound medicine to be granted a patent in
England.[21] Stoughton was an apothecary who had a shop at the Sign of
the Unicorn in Southwark, Surrey. It was evidently competition, the
constant bane of the medicine proprietor's life, that drove him to seek
governmental protection. In his specifications he asserted that he had
been making his medical mixture for over twenty years. Stoughton was
less precise about his formula; indeed, he gave none, but was generous
in indicating the remedy's name: "Stoughton's Elixir Magnum Stomachii,
or the Great Cordial Elixir, otherwise called the Stomatick Tincture or
Bitter Drops." In a handbill, the apothecary did tip his hand to the
extent of asserting that his Elixir contained 22 ingredients, but added
that nobody but himself knew what they were. The dosage was generous,
50 to 60 drops "in a glass of Spring water, Beer, Ale, Mum, Canary,
White wine, with or without sugar, and a dram of brandy as often as you
please." This, it was said, would cure any stomach ailment
whatever.[22]
[21] Richard Stoughton, "Restorative cordial and medicine,"
British patent 390, 1712.
[22] From a broadside, _ca._ 1750, advertising "Dr. Stoughton's
Elixir Magnum Stomachum," preserved in the American Antiquarian
Society, Worcester, Mass.
The inventor died in 1726, and his passing p
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