The venders of medicines advertised in eighteenth-century Bath newspapers.

FROM THE middle of the eighteenth century, Bath was well supplied with weekly newspapers' and a prominent feature in their columns was the advertisement of patent or proprietary medicines. In the early issues, these advertisements were conspicuous because of the bold type in which the names of the medicines were printed, and because they often reproduced the pseudo-heraldic device with which the medicine was sealed. Throughout the second half of the century, advertisements for medicines occupied considerable space, frequently filling more than ten per cent of the total column length, and occasionally exceeding twenty per cent. Many products were involved, the Bath Chronicle in 1790, for example, advertising 114 different medicines, some of them repeatedly (Table 1). Many types of medical treatment must have been available in Bath at this time, and superficial inspection of these advertisements suggests that self-medication with patent or proprietary medicines made a significant contribution to the total therapeutic effort. The advertisements in a sample2 of Bath newspapers from their first appearance in 1744 until the end of the century have, therefore, been studied in an attempt to estimate the importance of medicines sold in this way. Where available, issues of the Bath Journal, Bath Chronicle, Bath Register and Bath Herald have been examined throughout the first year of their publication, and the issues for a year of at least one of these newspapers have been studied in each decade. The Bath Advertiser was examined during its third year of publication as this allowed a more complete series. Other issues of some newspapers were included in the sample because the newspaper was under new ownership or, as in the case of Farley's Bath Journal and the Bath Gazette, because no other issues are available. All patent and proprietary medicines were listed as long as they were offered for sale as distinct items; no entries were made when practitioners of various types advertised treatment in general terms without specifying the separate sale of a medicine. Occasionally it was difficult to decide whether a preparation was a cosmetic or a medicine; if a medicinal use was mentioned in any of the advertisements, the product was included. Donna Maria's Lotion,3 for example, was primarily cosmetic because it was "a Beautifyer and Restorer of relaxed Bosoms, to their former delicate Colour and Shape" but it is included because "it is sometimes effectual in cases of Cancer, if not too deeply rooted." Dental preparations have been included in all cases because their function was described as therapeutic or preventive as well as cosmetic. 302 prepara-