Bile Beans was a laxative and tonic first marketed in the 1890s. [1] [2] The product supposedly contained substances extracted from a hitherto unknown vegetable source by a fictitious chemist known as Charles Forde. [3] In the early years Bile Beans were marketed as "Charles Forde's Bile Beans for Biliousness", and sales relied heavily on newspaper advertisements. Among other cure-all claims, Bile Beans promised to "disperse unwanted fat" and "purify and enrich the blood". [4]
Although the manufacturer claimed that the formula for Bile Beans was based on a vegetable source known only to Aboriginal Australians, its actual ingredients, which included cascara, rhubarb, liquorice and menthol, were commonly found in pharmacies of the period. A court case initiated in Scotland in 1905 found that the Bile Bean Manufacturing Company's business was based on a fraud and conducted fraudulently, but Bile Beans continued to be sold until the 1980s nevertheless.
Charles Edward Fulford (1870–1906) and Ernest Albert Gilbert (1875–1905) first sold Bile Beans in Australia in late 1897, marketed as "Gould's Bile Beans". [5] Fulford was a Canadian who had travelled to Australia to sell Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People for his uncle, George Taylor Fulford. [6] [7]
Fulford and Gilbert established the Bile Bean Manufacturing Company in Leeds, England, in 1899. It was claimed that the formula for Bile Beans was created by an Australian scientist Charles Forde in 1898, based on research he had conducted on a vegetable source known only to Aboriginal Australians. In reality, Charles Forde did not exist; the name was used as an alias for Charles Fulford, who had no scientific training. The beans were initially manufactured in America by Parke Davis & Co. of Detroit, until the Bile Bean Manufacturing Company set up a production facility in Leeds, England, [8] trading under the name of C. E. Fulford Limited, which also sold other patent medicines, including the Zam-Buk ointment, [lower-alpha 1] Pep pastilles and later Vitapointe hair conditioner. [1] [lower-alpha 2]
The product sold by Fulford and Gilbert was not the first patent medicine marketed as "Bile Beans". A different type of Bile Beans was invented by James F. Smith, a chemist from Texarkana, Texas, in the 1870s or 1880s, and J.F. Smith & Co traded out of St Louis, Mo. The firm also produced a product called "Smith's Blood Beans", claimed to "purify the blood" and was "put up in packages similar to Bile Beans" with "sugar coating blood red in color", and a "wrapper [...] lithographed in red ink instead of black". [11] In 1902 the Bile Bean Manufacturing Company acquired the trade mark of "J. F. Smith's Bile Beans" in the UK, which had been registered in 1887. [12]
According to a 1903 report published in the British Medical Journal , the chief ingredients of Bile Beans were cascara, rhubarb, liquorice and menthol, packaged as a gelatine-coated pill, [13] all ingredients commonly found in pharmacies of the period. [14] It was not until 1941 that English companies were legally required to disclose the active ingredients in their non-prescription drugs. [15] By the 1940s, the ingredients included various purgatives, cholagogues, and carminatives, including aloin (aloe), Podophyllum, cascara, scammony, jalap, colocynth, leptandrin, saponis (soap), cardamom, capsicum, ginger, peppermint oil, and gentian, mixed with liquorice, powdered gum (acacia or tragacanth) and glucose, coated with black charcoal or carbon powder to form ovoid pills. [16]
In 1905 the Bile Beans Manufacturing Company initiated a passing off court case in Scotland against an Edinburgh chemist, George Graham Davidson, who sold "Davidson's Bile Beans", seeking to prevent him from selling any product using the name "bile beans" except that supplied by the company. The presiding judge, Lord Ardwall, rejected the case, as he considered that the plaintiff's business was "founded on, and conducted by fraud", there being no secret ingredient and no connection with any plant found in Australia. [14] [17] The Court of Session dismissed an appeal, because it considered that the Bile Bean Manufacturing Company had deliberately defrauded the public by making false factual statements about the product, concluding that it was not entitled to any legal protection against the use of the term "bile beans". [12]
After setting up in England in 1899 the company spent about £60,000 a year in advertising its products, [8] and according to Birmingham University Professor of Medicine Robert Saundby, [18] "created a demand by flooding the country with advertisements, placards, pamphlets and imaginary pictures." [19] Early newspaper promotions usually took the form of testimonials proclaiming "miraculous life changing cures". [20] Often illustrated, they included letters from customers cured of lost appetites, severe headaches, indigestion and biliousness. [21] A half-page advertisement in the Sheffield Evening Telegraph on 12 October 1900 featured a lady who had been cured by Bile Beans after ten doctors had failed to successfully treat her condition; copies of signed affidavits from neighbours were also printed. [22] The level of advertising was not curtailed despite the adverse comments made by the judges in the court ruling. [23]
Among the more unusual marketing promotions undertaken by the Bile Beans Manufacturing Company was the "Bile Bean March", composed by Charles Fulford's older brother Frank Harris Fulford and first published in 1898. [6] [24] The music was described as "a bold, spirited composition" in a 1902 newspaper report. [25] Readers could apply to receive a free copy of the sheet music by sending their address details to the company. [26] Another marketing ploy was the production of a cookery book, [24] which was also made widely available free of charge. [20] A Bile Bean Puzzle Book was published during the early 1930s and also freely distributed. [27] By that time advertising for Bile Beans had become increasingly targeted at women, promising them health, bright eyes and a slim figure if taken regularly. [20]
When Radio Luxembourg started longwave commercial radio broadcasts in English in 1933, its first advertisers were Fulford's Bile Beans and Zam-Buk. [28]
During the 1940s newspaper advertising was supplemented by a poster campaign. [24] Aimed at maintaining high levels of purchasing by women, the posters featured young ladies dressed to participate in various activities, including horse riding, swimming and hiking; [24] the designs were the work of S. H. Benson, [29] a London advertising agency whose clients included Bovril and Guinness. [30] The Bulletin of the North Carolina State Board of Health hypothesised in 1916–17 that many provincial newspapers relied heavily on the revenues generated by advertisements from manufacturers of suspect remedies, and it speculated that editorial control had been applied to restrict extensive reporting of the Bile Beans court case. [31] Similar suspicions had been raised almost ten years earlier by medical director Eric Pritchard [32] who went on to highlight a clause showing newspaper advertising contracts could be revoked if the publication carried any material considered "detrimental to the Company's interest". [33]
Gilbert died in 1905 and Charles Fulford the following year in Australia, aged 36, after which the business was run by Charles's older brother, Frank Harris Fulford. [6] [24] Charles's estate was valued at £1.3 million, [34] around £148,762,752 today. [35] He made several bequests which included the gift of twenty per cent of the company shares to the British charity Barnardo's, although this conditional donation sparked consternation. [34] The clauses stipulated the charity must set up a limited company that would only sell Bile Beans and patent medicines manufactured by Fulford's businesses; additionally, Barnardo's were forbidden to sell any of the shares. [36] A writer in the British Medical Journal suggested the bequest presented the charity with an ethical dilemma as it enjoyed the patronage from both medical and religious professions so to trade in products described by a judge as fraudulent would be perpetuating the deception. [36] Initially Barnardo's refused the gift but eventually accepted an unconditional lump sum. [37]
Despite the Bile Beans Manufacturing Company having lost the Scottish court case in 1906, Bile Beans remained popular through the 1930s, and continued to be sold until the 1980s. [2] The business was so successful that Frank Fulford was able to purchase Headingley Castle in Leeds in 1909, and to donate artworks to the museum at Temple Newsam. [20]
The United States Food and Drug Administration is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, caffeine products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), cosmetics, animal foods & feed and veterinary products.
Bile, or gall, is a yellow-green fluid produced by the liver of most vertebrates that aids the digestion of lipids in the small intestine. In humans, bile is primarily composed of water, produced continuously by the liver, and stored and concentrated in the gallbladder. After a human eats, this stored bile is discharged into the first section of their small intestine.
A generic drug is a pharmaceutical drug that contains the same chemical substance as a drug that was originally protected by chemical patents. Generic drugs are allowed for sale after the patents on the original drugs expire. Because the active chemical substance is the same, the medical profile of generics is equivalent in performance compared to their performance at the time when they were patented drugs. A generic drug has the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) as the original, but it may differ in some characteristics such as the manufacturing process, formulation, excipients, color, taste, and packaging.
A patent medicine is a non-prescription medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name, and claimed to be effective against minor disorders and symptoms, as opposed to a prescription drug that could be obtained only through a pharmacist, usually with a doctor's prescription, and whose composition was openly disclosed. Many over-the-counter medicines were once ethical drugs obtainable only by prescription, and thus are not patent medicines.
A panacea, named after the Greek goddess of universal remedy Panacea, is any supposed remedy that is claimed to cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. It was in the past sought by alchemists in connection with the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, a mythical substance that would enable the transmutation of common metals into gold. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, many "patent medicines" were claimed to be panaceas, and they became very big business. The term "panacea" is used in a negative way to describe the overuse of any one solution to solve many different problems, especially in medicine. The word has acquired connotations of snake oil and quackery.
The Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a museum of the history of medicine adjacent to St James's University Hospital. It opened in March 1997 as the Thackray Medical Museum. In 1998 it won "Museum of the Year" and has other awards including in 2004 both the "Excellence in England Small Tourist Attraction of the Year" and "Sandford Award for Heritage Education".
The pharmaceutical industry in India was valued at an estimated US$42 billion in 2021 and is estimated to reach $130 billion by 2030. India is the world's largest provider of generic medicines by volume, with a 20% share of total global pharmaceutical exports. It is also the largest vaccine supplier in the world by volume, accounting for more than 60% of all vaccines manufactured in the world. Indian pharmaceutical products are exported to various regulated markets including the US, UK, European Union and Canada.
Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People was a late 19th to early 20th-century patent medicine containing ferrous sulfate and magnesium sulfate. It was produced by Dr. Williams Medicine Company, the trading arm of G. T. Fulford & Company. It was claimed to cure chorea, referenced frequently in newspaper headlines as "St. Vitus' Dance"; as well as "locomotor ataxia, partial paralyxia, seistica, neuralgia rheumatism, nervous headache, the after-effects of la grippe, palpitation of the heart, pale and sallow complexions, [and] all forms of weakness in male or female."
Fletcher's Castoria, now known as Fletcher's Laxative, is an oral syrup containing a stimulant laxative and ingredients to soothe the stomach. It is a product of The Mentholatum Company, Inc.
George Taylor Fulford was a Canadian businessman and politician.
Beecham's Pills were a laxative first marketed about 1842 in Wigan, Lancashire. They were invented by Thomas Beecham (1820–1907), grandfather of the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879–1961). The British pharmaceutical firm, established in 1859 as Beechams, became a global brand, and in the year it was founded produced the first advertising slogan.
The Leeds Art Fund (LAF), formerly the Leeds Art Collections Fund (LACF) is one of Britain's oldest supporting art gallery "friends" organisations. It was founded in Leeds on 11 November 1912 by Frank Rutter, who was the newly appointed curator of Leeds Art Gallery at the time, with the support of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, Michael Sadler. The LACF was established to encourage the visual arts in Leeds and, most importantly, to provide a source of funding that was independent of the municipality for the purchase of contemporary and historic works of art and design for the people of Leeds. Other founding members and sponsors included Sydney Kitson (1871–1937), a well-known local architect and collector, and Frank Harris Fulford, director of the family firm C. E. Fulford Limited, which manufactured Bile Beans.
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Frank Harris Fulford was an entrepreneur, art collector and businessman. Born in Canada in 1868, Fulford was educated in Leipzig then he returned to Brockville, a city in Eastern Ontario, where he worked as a dealer in music. He married sometime before 1902 and had three children. An older brother to Charles Edward Fulford, he moved to Leeds, in England, during 1902 to manage the British division of Charles's manufacturing business, C. E. Fulford Limited. The company produced patent medicines, manufacturing products including Bile Beans and Zam-Buk ointment, and was first established in the UK in 1899 after achieving success in Australia. The company undertook an unsuccessful court action, and a later appeal, against an Edinburgh pharmacist in 1905 but it continued to trade and prosper despite the judge opining that the business was "founded on, and conducted by fraud". A year later after the sudden death of his wealthy brother, Charles, Fulford took up the reins of the family business. He purchased Headingley Castle, Leeds, in 1909 and it became the family's main residence.
Zam-Buk is a patent medicine which was produced by the Zam-Buk Company of Leeds, England, founded by Charles Edward Fulford. It was first sold by his Bile Beans company in 1902, as a herbal balm and antiseptic ointment; the use of a complementary Zam-Buk soap was recommended to augment the treatment. The ointment was advertised as being effective against a wide range of conditions, including cuts, bruises, sprains, ulcers, bleeding piles and even colds and toothache. It could also be used as an embrocation by rubbing it into the muscles of the back, legs or feet.
Arthur Joseph Cramp was a medical doctor, researcher, and writer. He served as director of the American Medical Association's (AMA) Propaganda for Reform Department from 1906 to 1936. He was a regular contributor to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Cramp was "a bitter opponent of proprietary and medicinal abuses." His three volume series on 'Nostrums and Quackery', along with his public lectures to schools, professional groups, and civic organizations across the country, helped bring awareness to the problem of patent medicines or nostrums, by subjecting the claims to scientific analysis. He was critical the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, and advocated stronger regulation of product labeling and advertising. In an article announcing his death, the AMA called him "a pioneer in the fight against quackery and fraud in the healing arts."
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