to
substantiate such an incident has been encountered. It would seem that
the use of English packaged remedies in America was most infrequent
before 1700. Samuel Lee, answering questions posed from England in 1690
about the status of medicine and pharmacy in Massachusetts, mentions no
patent medicines.[25] Neither does the 1698 account book of the Salem
apothecary, Bartholomew Brown.[26]

[25] George L. Kittredge, "Letters to Samuel Lee and Samuel
Sewall relating to New England and the Indians," _Colonial
Society of Massachusetts, Transactions_, 1913, vol. 14, pp.
142-186.

[26] Bartholomew Brown, Apothecary day book, Salem [1698];
manuscript original preserved in the Library of the Essex
Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.

[Illustration: Figure 4.--PATRICK ANDERSON, M.D., from a box of
Anderson's Scots Pills. From Wootton's _Chronicles of pharmacy_,
London, 1910. (_Smithsonian photo 44286-C._)]

In the _Boston News-Letter_ for October 4, 1708, Nicholas Boone, at the
Sign of the Bible, near the corner, of School-House-Lane, advertised
for sale: "DAFFY'S Elixir Salutis, very good, at four shillings and
sixpence _per_ half pint Bottle." This may well be the first printed
reference in America to an English patent medicine, and it certainly is
the first newspaper advertisement for a nostrum. Preceding the
_News-Letter_ in colonial America, there had been only one paper, the
_Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic_.[27] This journal had
lasted but a single issue. Then its printer had returned to England,
where he took up the career of a patent medicine promoter, vending "the
only Angelical Pills against all Vapours, Hysterick Fits." The
_News-Letter_ had begun with the issue of April 27, 1704, about 4 years
before Boone's advertisement for Daffy's remedy made its appearance,
but during that time, only one advertisement for anything at all in the
medical field had appeared, and that was for a home-remedy book, _The
English physician_, by Nicholas Culpeper, Doctor of Physick.[28] This
volume was also for sale at Boone's shop.

[27] Frank L. Mott, _American journalism_, New York, 1941, pp.
9-10.

[28] _Boston News-Letter_, Boston, February 9, 1708.

Patent-medicine advertising in the _News-Letter_ prior to 1750 was
infrequent. Apothecary Zabdiel Boylston, who a decade later was to earn
a role of esteem in medical history by introducing the inoculation fo