| | | | Nostrums and Patent Medicines | Pills, drops, salves and elixirs are all examples of quack nostrums which were particularly popular in 19th Century America. These medications were often dreamt up by laymen with no medical background whatsoever and marketed to the public as a pain free alternative to the bleedings and purgatives employed by physicians. |  |
 | While generic nostrums were
distributed widely through drug stores,
quacks would also sell them directly to
consumers as so-called patent
medicines. Advertisements for patent
medicines would make outrageous
claims about their efficacy with bogus
testimonials as proof. In 1905 Samuel
H. Adams wrote: “Gullible America
will spend this year some seventy-five
million dollars in the purchase of
patent medicines.” This is
approximately 1.6 billion dollars today. | Although called patent medicines, this term is a misnomer. American patent law required manufacturers to publish their ingredients, something quacks were not anxious to do. So more often the names of these medicines were simply trademarked, which allowed manufacturers to market a drug but change its composition for economic or legal reasons.
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