d or marketed as "new
inventions" can in every case be found in such 17th-century
pharmacopoeias as William Salmon's _Pharmacopoeia Londinensis_.

[Illustration: Figure 6.--BOTTLES OF BATEMAN'S PECTORAL DROPS, 19th
century (left) and early 20th century (right), from the Samuel Aker,
David and George Kass collection, Albany, New York. (_Smithsonian photo
44287-A._)]

Whatever similarities existed between the canons of regular pharmacy
and the composition of patent medicines, there was a decided difference
in the methods of marketing. Although patent medicines were often
prescription items, they did not have to be. The way they looked on a
shelf made them so easily recognizable that even the most loutish
illiterate could tell one from another. As the nostrum proprietor did
so much to pioneer in advertising psychology, so he also blazed a trail
with respect to distinctive packaging. The popularity of the old
English remedies, year in and year out, owed much to the fact that
though the ingredients inside might vary (unbeknownst to the customer),
the shape of the bottle did not. This was the reason proprietors raised
such a hue and cry about counterfeiters. The secret of a formula might,
if only to a degree, be retained, but simulation of bottle design and
printed wrapper was easily accomplished, and to the average customer
these externals were the medicine.

This fundamental fact was to be recognized by the committee of
Philadelphia pharmacists in 1824. "We are aware" the committeemen
reported, "that long custom has so strongly associated the idea of the
genuineness of the Patent medicines, with particular shapes of the
vials that contain them, and with certain printed labels, as to render
an alteration in them an affair of difficulty. Many who use these
preparations would not purchase British Oil that was put up in a
conical vial, nor Turlington's Balsam in a cylindrical one. The stamp
of the excise, the king's royal patent, the seal and coat of arms which
are to prevent counterfeits, the solemn caution against quacks and
imposters, and the certified lists of incredible cures, [all these were
printed on the bottle wrappers] have not even now lost their
influence." Nor were they for years to come.

Thus after 1754 the Turlington Balsam bottle was pear-shaped, with
sloping shoulders, and molded into the glass in crude raised capitals
were the proprietor's name and his claim of THE KINGS ROYAL PATENT.[53]
Turlington duri