e cleverness of contemporary English nostrum advertising. In
the whole span of the _Boston News-Letter_, beginning in 1704, it was
not until 1763 that a bookstore pulled out the stops with half a column
of lively prose in behalf of Dr. Hill's four unpatented nostrums.[41]
It seems a safe assumption that not only the medicines but the verbiage
were imported from London, where Dr. Hill had been at work endeavoring
to restore a Greek secret which "converts a Glass of Water into the
Nature and Quality of Asses Milk, with the Balsamick Addition...."

[41] _Boston News-Letter_, Boston, November 24, 1763.

The infrequency of extended fanciful promotion in behalf of the old
English nostrums in American newspaper advertising may have been
compensated for to some degree in broadside and pamphlet. A critic of
the medical scene in New York in the early 1750's asserted that
physicians used patent medicines which they learned about from "London
quack bills." This doctor complained, these were often their only
reading matter.[42] Such a judgment may be too severe. Certainly it is
difficult to validate today. Such pamphlets and broadsides do appear in
American archival collections. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
contains a 2-page Turlington broadside,[43] while the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington has an earlier 46-page Turlington
pamphlet with testimonials reaching out toward America.[44] One such
certificate came from "a sailor before the mast, on board the ship
Britannia in the New York trade," and another cited a woman living in
Philadelphia who gave thanks for the cure of her dropsy.

[42] James J. Walsh, _History of the Medical Society of the State
of New York_, New York, 1907.

[43] Robert Turlington, "Turlington's Balsam of Life," 1755-1757.
A later reprint of this same circular is preserved in the Warshaw
Collection of Business Americana.

[44] _Turlington's Balsam of Life_ (see footnote 15).

A broadside in the Warshaw Collection touting Bateman's Drops noted
that "extraordinary demands have been made for Maryland, New-York,
Jamaica, etc. where their virtues have been truely experienced with the
greatest satisfaction."[45] That such promotional items are extremely
rare does not mean they were not abundant in the mid-18th century, for
this type of printed matter, then as now, was likely to be looked at
and thrown away. A certain amount of nostrum literature was und