ow extensively, during the struggle for independence,
this custom was adopted for English patent medicines other than Daffy's
and Stoughton's. However, imitation of English patent medicines in
America was to increase, and it contributed to the chaos that beset the
nostrum field when the war was over and the original articles from
England were once more available. And they were bought. An
advertisement at a time when the fighting was over and peace
negotiations were still under way indicated that the Baltimore post
office had half a dozen of the familiar English remedies for sale.[69]
Two years later a New York store turned to tortured rhyme to convey the
same message:[70]

Medicines approv'd by royal charter,
James, Godfry, Anderson, Court-plaster,
With Keyser's, Hooper's Lockyer's Pills,
And Honey Balsam Doctor Hill's;
Bateman and Daffy, Jesuits drops,
And all the Tinctures of the shops,
As Stoughton, Turlington and Grenough,
Pure British Oil and Haerlem Ditto....

[69] _Maryland Journal and Baltimore Gazette_, Baltimore, October
29, 1782.

[70] _New York Packet and the American Advertiser_, New York,
October 11, 1784.

Later in the decade, the Salem apothecary, Jonathon Waldo, made a list
of "An assortment [of patent medicines] Usually Called For." The
imported brand of Turlington's Balsam, Waldo stated, was "very dear" at
36 shillings a dozen, adding that his "own" was worth but 15 shillings
for the same quantity. The English original of another nostrum, Essence
of Peppermint, he listed at 18 shillings a dozen, his own at a mere
10/6.[71] Despite the price differential, importations continued. A
Beverly, Massachusetts, druggist, Robert Rantoul, in 1799 ordered from
London filled boxes and bottles of Anderson's Pills, Bateman's Drops,
Steer's Opodeldoc, and Turlington's Balsam, along with the empty vials
in which to put British Oil and Essence of Peppermint.[72] For decades
thereafter the catalogs of wholesale drug firms continued to specify
two grades of various patent medicines for sale, termed "English" and
"American," "true" and "common," or "genuine" and "imitation."[73] This
had not been the case in patent medicine listings of 18th-century
catalogs.[74]

[71] Waldo, _op. cit._ (footnote 65).

[72] Robert Rantoul, Apothecary daybooks, 3 vols., Beverly,
Massachusetts [1796-1812]. Manuscript originals preserved in the
Beverly