S. P. Townsend, as is well known, amassed a fortune, at one time, on the profits of the “sarsaparilla,” put up, as the reader may remember, in huge, square, black bottles. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. XL. p. 237, says, “Townsend’s Sarsaparilla, Albany, N. Y., in nearly black bottles,” is “composed of molasses, extract of roots or barks (sassafras bark is better than essence, because of body and color), and probably senna and sarsaparilla. A. A. Hayes, State Assayer.”
The medical properties are all a supposition, even though Dr. Hayes was hired to give the analysis of it to the public, in the interest of the proprietor, and consequently he would not detract from its supposed merits.
Pectorals, wild cherry preparations, etc., are cheaply made. Oil of almonds produces the cherry flavor, hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid, a virulent poison) and morphine, or opium, constitute the medical properties. I have not examined the exception to the above.
Pills. The bitter and cathartic properties of nearly every pill in the market,—advertised preparation,—whether “mandrake,” “liver,” “vegetable,” or what else, are made up from aloes, the coarsest and cheapest of all bitter cathartics. One is as good as another. You pay your money, however; you can take your choice.
One holds the ascendency in proportion to the money or cheek invested by the owner in its introduction. A great Philadelphia pill, now sold in all the drug stores of America, was introduced by the following “dodge”: The owner began small. He took his pills to the druggists, and, as he could not sell an unknown and unadvertised patent pill, he left a few boxes on commission. He then sent round and bought them up. Their ready sale induced the druggists to purchase again, for cash. The proprietor invested the surplus cash in advertising their “rapid sale,” as well as their “rare virtues,” and by puffing, and a little more buying up, he got them started. He necessarily must keep them advertised, or they would become a drug in market.
Wilkie Collins, Esq., in “No Name,” has the best written description of the modus operandi of keeping a “pill before the people,” and I cannot refrain from quoting Captain Wragge to Magdalen in this connection.
“My dear girl, I have been occupied, since we last saw each other, in slightly modifying my old professional habits. I have shifted from moral agriculture to medical agriculture. Formerly I preyed on the public sympathy; now I prey on the public’s stomach. Stomach and sympathy, sympathy and stomach. The founders of my fortune are three in number: their names are Aloes, Scammony, and Gamboge. In plainer words, I am now living—on a pill! I made a little money, if you remember, by my friendly connection with you. I made a little more by the happy decease (Requiescat in pace) of that female relative of Mrs. Wragge’s. Very good! What do you think I did? I invested the whole of my capital, at one fell swoop, in advertising a pill, and purchased my drugs and pill boxes on credit. The result is before you. Here I am, a grand financial fact, with my clothes positively paid for, and a balance at my banker’s; with my servant in livery, and my gig at the door; solvent, popular, and all on a pill!”
Magdalen smiled.
“It’s no laughing matter for the public, my dear; they can’t get rid of me and my pill; they must take us. There is not a single form of appeal in the whole range of human advertisement which I am not making to the unfortunate public at this moment. Hire the last novel—there I am inside the covers of the book; send for the last song—the instant you open the leaves I drop out of it; take a cab—I fly in at the windows in red; buy a box of tooth-powders at the chemists—I wrap it up in blue; show yourself at the theatre—I flutter down from the galleries in yellow. The mere titles of my advertisements are quite irresistible. Let me quote a few from last week’s issue. Proverbial title: ‘A pill in time saves nine.’ Familiar title: ‘Excuse me, how is your stomach?’ Patriotic title: ‘What are the three characteristics of a true-born Englishman?—his hearth, his home, and his pill;’ etc.
“The place in which I make my pill is an advertisement in itself. I have one of the largest shops in London. Behind the counter, visible to the public through the lucid medium of plate glass, are four and twenty young men, in white aprons, making the pill. Behind another, four and twenty making the boxes. At the bottom of the shop are three elderly accountants, posting the vast financial transactions accruing from the pill, in three enormous ledgers. Over the door are my name, portrait, and autograph, expanded to colossal proportions, and surrounded, in flowing letters, the motto of the establishment: ‘Down with the Doctors.’ Mrs. Wragge contributes her quota to this prodigious enterprise. She is the celebrated woman whom I have cured of indescribable agonies, from every complaint under the sun. Her portrait is engraved on all the wrappers, with the following inscription: ‘Before she took the pill,’ etc.”