Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops

Dr Bateman's Pectoral Drops (also known as ‘Batemans Original Pectoral Drops’, and 'Bateman's and Stoughton's drops’) was a popular patent medicine for disorders of the chest or lungs during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries in Britain and North America. It was later marketed as a remedy for ‘all Rheumatic and Chronic complaints, in pains of the limbs, bones, and joints, for influenza, and in violent colds,.[1]

19th century newspaper advertisement for Dr Bateman's Pectoral Drops

Ingredients

The medicine was similar to paregoric; a tincture of opium and camphor. To this was added catechu together with anise flavouring and a colouring agent. Over the years there were several different formulas. Bateman’s Drops were advertised as being intended for infants and adults and was dosed accordingly.

Origins

The original formula was developed by Benjamin Okell of Northampton, before 1711, when a patent was granted for its manufacture.[2] Advertisements are first known in the Northampton Mercury newspaper in 1720.[3]

Marketing

UK

Okell went into partnership with the proprietors of the Northampton Mercury, William Dicey and Robert Raikes, and from August 1721 the medicine was advertised in the imprint of the newspaper. From 1722, John Cluer of Bow Churchyard joined the partnership and marketed the medicine in London.[4] About 1724 Okell published A short treatise of the virtues of Dr. Bateman's pectoral drops: the nature of the distempers they cure, and the manner of their operation, printed by Raikes and Dicey.[5]

In 1726 the patent was re-issued to Okell, Dicey, Raikes and Cluer. Cluer published An abstract of the patent in the same year.[6]

John Cluer died in 1728 and his business was continued by his widow (William Dicey’s sister), until 1731, thereafter by Thomas Cobb (her second husband) until 1736, when the business was assigned to William Dicey.[7] Raikes last advertised the medicine in ‘’The Daily Gazetteer’’ 14 July 1741, but thereafter it is only advertised as produced by William Dicey and Co. Benjamin Okell died circa 1753 and his widow, Elizabeth, took over her husband’s share, although Benjamin’s name continued to be mentioned in advertisements for the medicine until January 1755.[8] William Dicey’s will of 1756 mentions his having only a one third share in the medicine.[9] After William’s death that year the medicine was marketed by Cluer Dicey & Co until c.1770 and thereafter Dicey & Co.

In 1759 Cluer Dicey & Co. described as the ‘original proprietors’ of the medicine won a case brought against Thomas Jackson for counterfeiting the medicine.[10]

About 1792 Dicey & Co. went into partnership with Edward Beynon at 10 Bow Churchyard.[11] After Beynon's death in 1800 it became Dicey and Sutton, and later to Messrs W. Sutton & Co. of Enfield Middlesex who continuing to market it throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. W. Sutton & Co. (Druggists' Sundries), London, Ltd., of Enfield, in Middlesex, successors to Dicey & Co. at Bow Churchyard, currently sells Bateman's Pectoral Drops in the early 1950s.[12]

By the mid-nineteenth century there were a variety of different manufacturers and formulae on the market, Thus an advertisement in The Derby Mercury, for 5 January 1842, is for ‘Barclays’ Bateman's Drops’,.

United States

In 1731 the medicine was advertised in the ‘’New-York Weekly Journal’’ advertised “An Abstract of the Patent,” printed by John Peter Zenger with the name of James Wallace as local agent authorized to sell it.[13]

After the United States gained independence, American apothecaries marketed their own counterfeit versions. Versions continued into the 20th century when, for example—thanks to the 1906 Food and Drug Act—in 1918 a Reading, Pennsylvania, firm was fined fifty dollars for marketing an “adulterated” and “misbranded” version as Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops.[14]

Dangers

Richard Reece, writing in 1822, criticised the medicine in the following terms.

"The active ingredient of this composition is opium, which in chronic rheumaticism and chronic cough may, in one case out of a hundred afford temporary relief. In ‘’acute’’ cases as ‘fever, colds, and cough,’ it is capable of doing irreparable mischief, by disordering the head, constipating the bowels, and accelerating the circulation. In humid asthma and constitutional cough this remedy, by checking expectoration, would prove very injurious. It is in fact a disguised solution of opium which in the hands of ignorance is a very dangerous remedy."[15]

References
  1. ‘’The Derby Mercury’’, 5 January 1842.
  2. George B. Griffenhagen, Mary Bogard, History of Drug Containers and Their Labels, History of Drug Containers and Their Labels, American Institute for the History of Pharmacy, 1999) 72.
  3. An advertisement in The Cumberland Pacquet 22 April 1777 also speaks of it being in existence ‘for more than sixty years’. Northampton Mercury 12 September 1720.
  4. Northampton Mercury 6 August 1722.
  5. Benjamin Okell, A short treatise of the virtues of Dr. Bateman's pectoral drops: the nature of the distempers they cure, and the manner of their operation. (Northampton : printed by R. Raikes and W. Dicey; by whom all shopkeepers, &c. may be furnished with the above said pectoral drops wholesale, with good allowance: also at their printing office in Gloucester; and by Mr. John Cluer, in Bow Church-Yard, who is the only person that sells the same wholesale in London, [1724?]) ESTC T498347.
  6. Benjamin Okell,. An abstract of the patent granted by His Majesty King George, to Benj. Okell, the inventor of a medicine, call'd, Dr. Bateman's pectoral drops, and to J. Cluer, R. Raikes and W. Dicey, the persons concerned with the said inventor, that they may enjoy the sole benefit of the said medicine, (London : printed by J. Cluer in Bow Church-Yard, 1726). ESTC T71047.
  7. David Stoker, 'Another look at the Dicey-Marshall publications 1736-1806', The Library: Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 7th series, XV, (2014), 111-157., 155.
  8. ’’Public Advertiser’’ 24 January 1755.
  9. Stoker (2014), 115.
  10. Joad Raymond, ‘’News, Newspapers and Society in Early Modern Britain’’, (London: Frank Cass, 2002), 210
  11. Wakefield's Merchant and Tradesman's General Directory for London ... 1794
  12. George B. Griffenhagen & James Harvey Young, Old English Patent Medicines in America, Contributions from The Museum of History and Technology: Paper 10 Note 129. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30162/30162-h/30162-h.htm.
  13. Joe Nickell, ‘Dr. Bateman’s Pectoral Drops’ Center for Inquiry reason. science.secular values, https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/dr-_batemans_pectoral_drops/
  14. Nickell, ‘Dr. Bateman’s Pectoral Drops’.
  15. Richard Reece, 'Bateman’s Pectral Drops,' The Monthly Gazette of Health; or Medical Dietetic, Antiempirical, and General Philosophical Journal, Vol. VI, 807.
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