Ward bequeathed his book of secret formulas to his faithful friend and helper in his earlier troubles, John Page, M.P. Mr. Page was a wealthy man, and he decided to publish the recipes of those remedies which were most esteemed for “the noblest of all purposes, the common good of mankind.” So he states in introducing the pamphlet. But a difficulty occurred in respect of these formulas. They did not in all cases represent the medicines which the public had become accustomed to. They had been made for Ward by a Mr. John White, a manufacturing chemist of Twickenham, and a Mr. F. J. D’Osterman, who was probably an apothecary, and those two manufacturers alone knew the exact modifications which had been made in the preparations. In these circumstances the King (George II) consented in his “most benevolent disposition and extensive bounty” to make ample provision for these chemists. Whereupon the “Book of Secrets” was published. A depot for selling them was established, and a moderate tariff fixed at which those compounded by the chemists already named could be obtained, though, of course, anybody was at liberty to make similar preparations. Mr. Page provided that profits after paying expenses should be divided between an Orphan Asylum and a Magdalen Institution.
The following are the recipes for the fistula or pile paste and for the headache essence, both of which, being adopted in the Pharmacopœia, have some historic interest:—
Paste for the Fistula: Elecampane root, 1 lb.; fennel seeds, 3 lb.; black pepper, 1 lb. All in fine powder, mixed and sifted. Melt together 2 lb. each of honey and white sugar, and when this mixture is cool knead into it the prescribed powders. The dose was a piece the size of a nutmeg, to be taken morning, noon, and night, followed by a glass of water or white wine.
Essence for the Headache, etc.: French spirit of wine, 2 lb.; Roch alum in fine powder, 2 oz.; camphor, cut small, 4 oz.; essence of lemon, ½ oz.; strongest volatile spirit of sal ammoniac, 4 oz. A little of this essence was to be rubbed on the hand, and the hand was to be held hard to the part affected until it was dry. Ward told Mr. Page that it was this application which had cured George II’s thumb.
In a lecture on Hæmorrhoids delivered by Sir Benjamin Brodie at St. Georges Hospital, and reported in the London Medical Gazette, February 3, 1835, that eminent practitioner stated that he had often found the Confectio Piperis Co. (“similar to what was once very celebrated as Ward’s Paste”) successful when other simple expedients failed. He said it was rather disagreeable to take, tasted like a coarse gingerbread, and must be persevered in for a considerable time. He stated that one of the worst cases he ever knew was that of a lady who had consulted him, and he did not think it possible to cure her without an operation. She, however, was obliged to go into the country at the time, and as the operation must be delayed for a month at least, he recommended her to try Ward’s Paste meanwhile. She came back to him six or eight weeks later quite cured. He thought the remedy acted by passing into the colon and, becoming blended with the faeces, served as a local application.
The Whitworth Doctors
are almost forgotten now, but a century ago they were famous all over England. The Whitworth red bottle and the Whitworth drops are still more or less popular reminiscences of their pharmacy. The former was an embrocation, and the second an antispasmodic tincture. Both contained oil of thyme. Formulas are given in “Pharmaceutical Formulas,” published at 42, Cannon Street.
The founder of the family of the Whitworth Doctors was John Taylor, originally a farrier, of Whitworth, then a village about three miles from Rochdale. He died in 1802 at the age of sixty-two. John Taylor had a younger brother and two sons, and the younger brother also had sons, all of whom practised surgery. A third and even a fourth generation of surgeons, some of whom were fully qualified, likewise practised at Whitworth, and the last of the race died in 1876.
The original brothers Taylor were both farriers, but they became famous for their treatment of human patients. Their methods were of the most vigorous character. They were in the habit of buying a ton of Glauber’s salts from their wholesale druggists, Ewbank and Wallis, of York, and they dispensed it to those who sought their medical advice with no niggard hands, and without any formality of weighing. The two brothers provided free bleeding for poor patients every Sunday morning, and something like a hundred victims attended for this operation.
John Taylor (the original “Doctor”) never discontinued his treatment of horse complaints, and was believed to have taken more pride and pleasure in his veterinary work than in his dealings with humans. But the latter flocked to him from all parts of the country. Cancers, improperly set fractures, and deformities were his specialities, but his practice gradually extended to all kinds of ills. A crowd of rich and poor patients had to find lodgings somehow in the village, for they sometimes had to stay for weeks there. Fifty at a time could be seated in the long room where John treated them. They came in at one end of the room and went out at the other, and no one, no matter what his rank, was allowed to have the slightest preference. Eighteen-pence a week for medicine and treatment was the charge to all, and those who could not afford that fee were never asked for it. A lord drove up in his carriage one day, and the powdered footman was sent to ask John Taylor to “wait upon his lordship.” “Tell the man he must come in here and take his turn like the rest, if he wants me to wait on him,” said John; and “the man” had to do so. It is recorded that he left Whitworth cured.