Object Details
- Associated Name
- Brandreth Pill Works
- Allcock Manufacturing Company
- Description
- An inscription on the package reads in part “BRANDRETH PILLS / PROPRIETARY B. BRANDRETH” AND “ALLCOCK’S POROUS PLASTER” AND “BRANDRETH’S V.U. PILLS.”
- Benjamin Brandreth (1809-1880) was an Englishman who moved to the United States in 1835, hoping to find a market for the “Vegetable Universal Pill” invented by his grandfather, William Brandreth. According to his obituary, he was “the first of the family to conceive the idea of enlarging the business by the free use of printer’s ink.”
- Thomas Allcock (1815-1891) was an Englishman who moved to the United States in 1845, opened a drugstore in New York City and, in the mid-1850s, acquired the rights to a recently invented porous plaster for the relief of pain. After serving with the Union Army during the Civil War, Alcock returned to New York, and joined with Benjamin Brandreth in the manufacture and sale of patent medicines.
- Ref: “BENJAMIN BRANDRETH,” New York Times (Feb. 20, 1880), p. 2.
- “GEN. THOMAS ALLCOCK DEAD,” New York Times (Dec. 28, 1891), p. 2.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of William H. Helfand
- c.1868
- ID Number
- 1980.0678.29
- accession number
- 1980.0678
- catalog number
- 1980.0678.29
- Object Name
- otc preparation
- Other Terms
- Patent Medicines; Drugs; Non-Liquid
- Measurements
- overall: 2.5 cm x 5.2 cm x 1.5 cm; in x 2 1/16 in x 9/16 in
- box: 2 1/2 in x 1 1/8 in x 7/8 in; 6.35 cm x 2.8575 cm x 2.2225 cm
- tin: 1 in x 2 in x 5/8 in; 2.54 cm x 5.08 cm x 1.5875 cm
- place made
- United States: New York, Ossining
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Medicine
- Balm of America
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Laxatives
- Record ID
- nmah_715713
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a5-3cb8-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
