Roy Porter student Prize Essay, Gilding the Pill: The sensuous consumption of patent medicines, 1815-1841

Abstract

This article aims to remove patent medicines from the traditional quack/orthodox binary and reconsider them as material objects within sensory networks of production, distribution and consumption. Patent medicines offer a unique perspective on material history by being twice consumed; first through traditional exchange, followed by the private act of ingestion. Recognising both these interpretations, this article deconstructs the multisensory consumer experience engineered by nineteenth-century patent medicine proprietors. It argues that proprietors, fuelled by competition and aided by manufacturing innovations, refocused branding on the sensory qualities of their product. Standardised colours, shapes, textures and flavours encouraged consumers to draw a relationship between the reliable appearance of a product and the authenticity of the contents within. Tracing these synesthetic cues from the print media campaign through to the moment of ingestion extends the medical transaction and highlights the sophistication of nineteenth-century marketing tactics.