American Pharmaceutical Association, Practical
Pharmacy Edition_, January 1956, vol. 17, p. 20; Mitford B.
Mathews, ed., _A dictionary of Americanisms on historical
principles_, Chicago, 1951, 2 vols.; Bertha Kitchell Whyte,
_Wisconsin heritage_, Boston, 1954; Charles Earle Funk, _Heavens
to Betsy! and other curious sayings_, New York, 1955.

[60] James H. Thompson, _Bitters bottles_, Watkins Glen, New
York, 1947, p. 60.

Hooper's and Anderson's Scots Pills were, of course, not packaged in
bottles (at least not the earliest), but were instead sold in the
typical oval chip-wood pill boxes. On the lid of the box containing
Hooper's Pills was stamped this inscription: DR. JOHN HOOPER'S FEMALE
PILLS: BY THE KING'S PATENT 21 JULY 1743 NO. 592. So far no example or
illustration of Anderson's Scots Pills has been found. At least one
producer, it will be remembered (page 157), sealed the box in black wax
bearing a lion rampant, three mallets argent, and the bust of Dr.
Anderson.

Source of Supply Severed

On September 29, 1774, John Boyd's "medicinal store" in Baltimore
followed the time-honored custom of advertising in the _Maryland
Gazette_ a fresh supply of medicines newly at hand from England. To
this intelligence was added a warning. Since nonimportation agreements
by colonial merchants were imminent, which bade fair to make goods hard
to get, customers would be wise to make their purchases before the
supply became exhausted. Boyd's prediction was sound. The Boston Tea
Party of the previous December had evoked from Parliament a handful of
repressive measures, the Intolerable Acts, and at the time of Boyd's
advertisement, the first Continental Congress in session was soon to
declare that all imports from Great Britain should be halted.

[Illustration: Figure 7.--BOTTLES OF BRITISH OIL, 19th and early 20th
century, from the Samuel Aker, David and George Kass collection,
Albany, New York. (_Smithsonian photo 44201-B._)]

This Baltimore scare advertising may well have been heeded by Boyd's
customers, for trade with the mother country had been interrupted
before; in the wake of the Townshend Acts in 1767, when Parliament had
placed import duties on various products, including tea, American
merchants in various cities had entered into nonimportation agreements.
Certainly, there was a decided decrease in the Boston advertising of
patent medicines received from London. With respe