Among the foremost in London was a German Jew who called himself Doctor Brodum. This individual, who, it is said, started life as a footman, took a large house in a fashionable square in the west-end, and drove a pair of horses in a gorgeous chariot. He called his nostrum “Nervous Cordial,” its properties being set forth in a pamphlet entitled A Guide to Old Age. He is said to have amassed a fortune in a very short time.
Another notorious quack was Doctor Solomon, who eventually settled in Liverpool. He originally sold blacking in Newcastle, but finding it did not pay, came to Liverpool, where he tried to establish a newspaper. This effort also proved a failure, and Solomon at length turned his attention to quack doctoring, and brought out a nostrum called “The Balm of Gilead”. This proved successful, and he soon made enough money to build himself a substantial house in Kensington, which was at that time a fashionable suburban district. To advertise his preparation he wrote a pamphlet called The Guide to Health, extolling the virtues of the “Balm of Gilead and Anti-Impetigines”. This treatise, the cover of which was adorned with an engraving of his mansion at Kensington, stated “the most learned physicians have been unable to discover in the cordial Balm of Gilead the least particle of mercury, antimony, or any other mineral except pure virgin gold and the balm of Mecca”.
The Doctor was a well-known character in the streets of Liverpool in the early part of this century, and in his daily promenade always carried an elaborate gold-headed cane. The celebrated “balm” is said to have been simply brandy flavoured with some aromatic oil, and although sold at a guinea a bottle, was in great demand.
A story is told of a prominent tradesman of the time, who discovered that his wife was consuming considerable quantities of the invigorating balm. Being further informed that this had become a common habit with many of her friends, he took counsel with the husbands of these ladies, with the result that they determined to punish the doctor by carrying out the following plot. On a certain dark night, a messenger was despatched to the doctor’s house, asking him to come at once and see a patient a little way out in the country, and to be sure and bring with him several bottles of his Balm of Gilead. The unsuspecting victim soon set out on foot along the country lanes, and on getting to a very lonely part, was pounced upon by four men disguised in cowskins, who, with long horns and tails, looked like fiends incarnate. The poor doctor thought his last hour had come, and went down on his knees and invoked all the prophets he could think of; but his tormentors dragged him off to a field close by, where they made him swallow bottle after bottle of his own nostrum, then ducked him in a pond and tossed him in a blanket.
Solomon was so incensed at this outrage he determined to leave Liverpool and settle in Birmingham, but in a short time returned to the former city, where he died, and was buried, according to his directions, in his own garden.
The following verse, referring to these empirics, is extracted from an old ballad:—
“Brodum or Solomon with physic,
Like death, despatch the wretch that’s sick,
Pursue a sure and thriving trade;
Though patients die, the doctor’s paid!
Licensed to kill, he gains a palace
For what another mounts a gallows!”
The electropathic girdles of our own time had their anti-type in Perkin’s far-famed tractors for preserving health, for which the proprietor demanded the sum of five guineas a set. The wonderful properties attributed to them were set forth in a small book, entitled The Influence of the Metallic Tractors on the Body.
Among the nostrums that enjoyed popularity in the early part of this century were De Velno’s Vegetable Syrup, Dr. Senate’s Lozenges of Steel to prolong life, Leake’s Patent Pills, Dr. Burton’s Vital Wine, Beddoe’s Volatile Cordial Oxygen Gas for preserving life, Dr. Squirrel’s Tonic Drops and Powders, Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam, and many others.
The foibles of many of the most prominent empirics of the period are well hit off in the following old ballad:—