A History of Advertising from the Earliest Times.

by Henry Sampson

In regard that there are many that perish in and about this City, &c. through an evil custom, arising from a false opinion That it is not safe to take Physick in the Extreams of Heat and Cold or in the Dog days; and some exclude old People, Women with Child and little Children, from the use of Medicine; which is as much as to say, That God hath ordained no Medicine for such Times and such Ages, which would be absurd to imagine, seeing we know there is no Time, Age nor Disease exempted from proper homogenial and effectual Means (with God’s Blessing) only against Death there is no Medicine, the Time of which to us is uncertain. From the aforesaid Mistakes many labour under the tyranny of their Diseases, till the Catastrophe end in Death (before the Time come which they have alotted for their Cure) which might by timely and suitable Remedies be prevented. It’s granted pro confesso that there is a sort of Dogmatical Medicines, that is unfit to be exhibited in those Times, and are not innocent at any Time, being impregnated with venomenous Beams, which by their virulent Hostility invade the vital Œconomy of the Body. But you may have Archeal or Vital medicines, truly adapted for all Times; being divested of their Crudities and heterogene Qualities, by a true Separation of the pure from the impure, and impregnated with Beams of Light, which give their Influences and refreshing Glances upon the vital Faculties, expels Venoms, alters Ferments, co-unites with Nature and re-unites its powers to their due Œconomy, and such Medicines being most natural and most powerful in the most deplorable Diseases being timely taken are most effectual, and are no more to be omitted at any time than foods, and are altogether as safe.

And so on at length, until Nath. Merry divulges the secret that he is the man for the dog-days, and that all others are impostors, which in common with many remarks of the kind, found in most advertisements of the same and other times issued by pretended curers of all known and many unknown disorders, lead us to the belief that however willing quacks have always been to impose upon the credulous themselves, they have been careful enough to expose the presumption of their rivals: a merciful dispensation of providence, which has enabled the statements of one rogue to be balanced, and to a certain extent neutralised, by those of another, and so the remedy is found in the disease when at its worst. Had it not been for the attacks made by empirics upon each other throughout the last century, qualified medical men would have stood a very bad chance, and as it is they seem to have often been obliged to join the ranks of the rascals from sheer inability to get a living without pandering to the popular taste for infallible remedies and things generally unknown to the pharmacopœia. Here is the commencement of an appeal made just prior to the year 1700 by one quack, which consists in a warning against all others of the same profession, and which shows how anxious the writer is for the public benefit, except where his own is immediately concerned:—

A Caution to the Unwary.

’Tis generally acknowledged throughout all Europe, that no Nation has been so fortunate in producing such eminent Physicians, as this Kingdom of ours; and ’tis as obvious to every Eye, that no Country was ever pestered with so many ignorant Quacks or Empirics. The Enthusiast in Divinity having no sooner acted his Part, and had his Exit, but on the same Stage, from his Shop (or some worse Place) enters the Enthusiast in Physicks: yesterday a Taylor, Heelmaker, Barber, Serving Man, Rope Dancer, etc., to-day per saltum a learned Doctor, able to instruct Esculapius himself, for he never obliged Mankind yet with a Panacæa, an universal Pill or Powder that could cure all Diseases, which now every Post can direct you to, though it proves only the Hangman’s Remedy for all Diseases by Death. Pudet hæc opprobria dici; for shame, my dear Countrymen, reassume your Reasons, and expose not your Bodies and Purses to the handling of such illiterate Fellows, who never had the Education of a Grammar-School, much less of an University.

Nor be ye so irrational as to imagine anything extraordinary (unless it be Ignorance) in a Pair of outlandish Whiskers, tho’ he’s so impudent to tell you he has been Physician to 3 Emperours and 9 Kings when in his own Country he durst not give Physick to a Cobbler.

Nor be gulled with another sort of Impostor, who allures you to him with Cure without Money, but when he once has got you into his Clutches, he handles you as unmercifully as he does unskilfully.

Nor be ye imposed on by the Pretence of any Herculean Medicine, that shall with four Doses at 5s. a Dose, cure the most inveterate Complaint, and Distempers not to be eradicated (in the Opinion of the most learned in all Ages) with less than a Renovation of all the Humours in the whole Body.

These and the like Abuses (too numerous here to be mentioned) have induced me to continue this public Way of Information, that you may be honestly dealt with, and perfectly cured, repairing to him, who with God’s Blessing on his Studies and 20 Years successful Practice in this City of London hath attained to the easiest and speediest way of curing.

Then follows the puff which this disinterested person gives to his own wares and powers, and if it is to be believed, he certainly proves to demonstration that he is as good as the others are bad. The next item we have is a bill of the early eighteenth century, headed by a rude woodcut of a unicorn’s horn. There is no address on it, and it looks as though used while travelling round the country, in which case the High-German’s lodging for the time being would be written or printed on the back, or supplemented in one of the ways usual among itinerant charlatans:—

The High-German, Master of the Waxwork,