Anderson’s Scots Pills.
These pills acquired extraordinary popularity, particularly in Scotland and France, and to some extent in other countries, including England. Either these pills or Singleton’s Eye Ointment is the proprietary remedy still sold in this country with the longest history. It is claimed that the ointment was invented some forty years earlier than the pills, but it must be admitted that the records of the latter, especially in their early days, are more exactly authenticated.
Patrick Anderson, M.D.
Dr. Patrick Anderson was a Scotch physician of considerable reputation in London in the Stuart period. He is described on some of his books as Physician to Charles I. In 1635 he published a treatise entitled as follows:—“Grana Angelica; hoc est pilularum hujus nominis insignis utilitas; quibus etiam accesserunt alia quaedam pancula de durioris alvi incommodis propter materiam cognitionem, ac vice supplementi in fine adjuncta.” He stated that he had obtained the formula for these pills in Venice. After his death they were sold in Edinburgh by his daughter Miss Katherine Anderson, and she by a deed registered in the Commissary Court books of Edinburgh, the 16th December, 1686, declared that she had communicated the secret to Thomas Weir, surgeon, in Edinburgh, “and to no other person.”
To Dr. Weir letters patent for the pills were granted by King James II, 1687, with letters of Certification, &c., by King William and Queen Mary, 1694; and Testification by the Town Council of Edinburgh, 1694. From Dr. Weir by regular succession and assignation, the secret was conveyed to his widow, 1711; thence to their son Alex. Weir, 1715; then to Lilias Weir, his sister, 1726; by her to Dr. Thomas Irving, her nephew, 1770; then to his widow, Mrs. Irving, 1797; by her to her son, James Irving, 1814, but the old lady appears to have retained an interest in them until her death in 1837, at the age of 99. During her life, and probably before and after, the “shop” where the pills were made and sold was on the second floor of a house in the Lawn Market opposite the site of the West Bow, a steep street which led down to the Grassmarket. The house still remains, the date 1690 being carved on the lintel. After certain assignations and trusteeships the property came into the hands of a Mr. J. Rodger who sold his rights to Messrs. Raimes, Blanshard & Co. in 1876. They and their successors, Raimes, Clark & Co., Limited, have been the proprietors since the date mentioned, and they inform me that there is still a small demand for them.
Formulas for “Anderson’s Scots Pills” will be found in all the manuals of pharmacy published in Europe and America, but they differ considerably. Paris in “Pharmacologia” said they were a compound of aloes and jalap with oil of anise; the French Codex which adopted them, or at least the name, compounded them of aloes and gamboge with oil of anise; Niemann, whose formulary had a quasi-official sanction in Holland early in the nineteenth century gave a much more complicated recipe, adding to the aloes both jalap and gamboge, together with sulphur, burnt ivory, liquorice powder, and soap. “Pharmaceutical Formulas” states that they are well represented by Pil Aloes et Myrrhæ B.P., “which (saving excipient) contains the same ingredients as those mentioned in a copy of the original document deposited in the Rolls House.”