The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7432 p783-784
23/30 December 2006

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Daffy: a legend in his own preparation

In this article, Peter Homan looks at the general history of a bottle of elixir in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's museum collection

Christmas miscellany 2006 index

The Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has an almost full bottle of one of the most enduring quack medicines — Daffy’s Elixir: the Elixir Salutis, manufactured by Dicey & Co of 10 Bow Church Yard, London. The inventor of this “elixir of health”, was Thomas Daffy who, in 1647, was appointed rector of Harby in Leicestershire. It appears that his work was not to the liking of the Countess of Rutland, a puritan, who had him demoted to rector of Redmile, Leicestershire, a post he then held from 1666 until his death in 1680.

It is not known exactly when Reverend Daffy invented his elixir, marketed under the name Elixir Salutis, but it is thought to have been in about 1650. Certainly by 1673 it had been successfully marketed, as shown by a report in Chetham Society Publications about Elizabeth Martindale, who died of a severe cold and cough:

That which seemed to doe her most good was elixir salutis, for it gave her much ease (my Lord Delamere having bestowed upon her severall bottles that came immediately from Mr. Daffie himself) and it also made her cheerful; but going forth and getting new cold she went fast away. I am really persuaded that if she had taken it a little sooner in due quantities, and been carefull of herself, it might have saved her life.

Reverend Daffy disclosed the formula of his elixir to a member of the family, Anthony Daffy. Both the Reverend’s daughter Katherine and Anthony Daffy continued to prepare the product after his death. According to Wooton’s ‘Chronicles of pharmacy’, Katherine produced an advertisement in the Post Boy in January 1707 that claimed:

It is prepared by me from the best drugs according to the Art and the original receipt which my Father the Rev. Thomas Daffy, late Rector of Redmile in the Valley of Belvoir, imparted to his kinsman Mr Anthony Daffy, who published the same to the benefit of the community. The very original Receipt is now in my possession, left to me by my father. My own brother, Mr Daniel Daffy, former Apothecary in Nottingham made this Elixir from the same receipt, and sold it there during his life. Those who know me will believe what I declare. “The true Elixir is sold at the Hand and Pen in Maiden-lane, Covent Garden and at many coffee-houses, also at the Naked Boy and Orange Tree, near the Maypole in the Strand.”

But it was Anthony, with his flair for advertising, who made Daffy’s Elixir a household name. Anthony had obviously worked with Thomas because, in 1673, while Thomas was still alive, he had produced a flier stating:

Elixir Salutis: the choise drink of health or health-bringing drink … a secret far beyond any Medicament yet known …

Anthony Daffy was born in the 1620s and trained to become a freeman of the Cordwainers’ Company, the London guild of shoemakers. He admitted that he had not invented the elixir but did claim to have improved the formula and had laid claim to the title “student in physick”. By 1661 he was married to Ellen Harwood.

Anthony Daffy died in Salisbury Square, Fleet Street in 1750, intestate and in debt. Of his seven children only one son and two daughters survived him. Although he had made money to enjoy a comfortable life, he had many personal debtors as well as amassing business debts. It was claimed that he had entrusted his wife to carry on the business until his daughters were old enough to take over. However, Ellen married a 23-year-old named Charles Trubshaw who claimed the recipe as his conjugal right. Ellen and her daughters contested this but failed. Trubshaw ejected Ellen, took a mistress, whom he later bigamously married, and successfully continued to produce the elixir. Ellen, with her two daughters, moved to a house nearby where she set up a rival elixir business. When Trubshaw died his “second” wife Grace Trubshaw took over the business and was known to have been trading into the mid-1720s. Ellen’s daughter Mary also carried on the elixir business that her mother had established.

From this time the history of Daffy’s Elixir becomes a little vague and it is not certain how it came to be produced by Dicey & Co. What is known is that an advertisement for Elixir Salutis that appeared in the Weekly Journal around that time gives an address as Daffy’s Elixir Warehouse, behind Bow Church, Cheapside, which could have been Dicey & Co. It is also unknown if the formula was that of the Reverend’s original elixir. It is probable that Dicey & Co was just one of a large number of rival manufacturers.

It seems that even in Anthony Daffy’s time, rivals were making their own versions of the elixir. A pamphlet from the museum’s collection warns:

Reader, if you have any Value for your Health, beware of Counterfeits, for they swarm; but be more particularly cautious you are not imposed upon by Quacks, who know nothing of the Preparation; and the more plausible to intrude their sham Medicine upon the Country, are so notoriously impudent, as to aver in Print, that their TRASH is the genuine ELIXIR to the incredible Prejudice of the Health of many Families.

The pamplet then offers “Directions given by ANTHONY DAFFY, for taking the Safe, Innocent, and Successful CORDIAL DRINK called ELIXIR SALUTIS ” and lists conditions that may be treated with the elixir, which included: gout, rheumatism, stones in the kidneys or bladder, exulceration (ulceration) in the kidneys, colic and “griping of the guts”, phthisic (lung congestion), dropsy, scurvy, surfeits (overindulgence), pestilence (plague), fits of the mother and “vapours of the spleen”, green sickness (chlorosis), convulsions and agues.

Furthermore, according to Wooton, a handbill wrapped around the bottle stated that the elixir was “much recommended to the public by Dr King, Physician to King Charles II”.

The formula

What were the ingredients that made Elixir Salutis so wonderful? The earliest formula appears to be the entry in the Pharmacopoeia Bateana, in 1688 (about 15 years after Thomas Daffy’s first flier).

This formula was adopted by the 1720 Pharmacopoeia Londiensis. The 1836 Pharmacopoeia Londiensis gives the formula for Elixir Salutis, also known as Tinctura Sennae Composita, as:

Take of senna three ounces and a half,
Caraway, bruised, three drachms and a half,
Cardamom, bruised, a drachm,
Raisins five ounces,
Proof spirit two pints;
Macerate for 14 days and strain.

In 1747, James, in his ‘English dispensatory’ gives the preparation of Elixir Salutis as:

Take of senna leaves, cleared of their stalks, four ounces; of guaiacum shavings, of dry’d elecampane root, of the seeds of anise, caraway, coriander, and of liquorice root, of each two ounces; of raisins stoned, eight ounces; of French brandy, three quarts; keep them together cold for four days, and then strain out the tincture for use.

Guiacum wood was said to increase the activity of senna. He continues:

Something very like this is the celebrated Daffy’s Elixir, by which an immense sum of money has been got by the dealers in it … It is a proper purge for drunkards, and is a great formula to old women habituated to drams.

It is interesting to note that the “drams” referred to were measures of gin. One of the most common forms of alcohol used in the preparation of 18th and 19th century medicines was gin; this gave rise to a slang name of “daffy’s” for gin.

Thomas Wakley, a famous physician and owner of The Lancet, was opposed to all forms of quackery. He attacked the manufacturers of quack medicines as being guilty of profit-orientated commercial practice performed by the unqualified. He published the formulae of quack medicines, including Daffy’s Elixir. His formula was the same as James’s except that proof spirit replaced the brandy. But according to ‘Gray’s supplement’ 1848, Daffy’s Elixir contained senna, jalap, aniseed, caraway seed, juniper berries, proof spirit, treacle and water.

The first British Pharmacopoeia (1864) listed Tincture of Senna as containing senna, raisins, caraway, coriander and proof spirit. In the 1898 pharmacopoeia, the name had changed to Compound Tincture of Senna, but the ingredients remained the same. The last official formula for Compound Senna Tincture was in the British Pharmaceutical Codex, 1949:

Prepared by percolation from senna leaf 20g, caraway 2.5g, coriander 2.5g, glycerin 10ml and alcohol (45 per cent) to 100ml

Conclusion

At some stage the business transferred to Sutton & Co, 76 Chiswell Street, London. The product continued to be sold until 1924. Daffy’s Elixir endured so long because it worked. People believed that bowel movement was a sign that the medicine was genuine. The flavour was sweet and warming and the alcohol would produce a feeling of well-being (rather like a liqueur).

The fact that Daffy’s Elixir existed with only minor alterations for 300 years pays homage to a good formulation, based on the ever-popular senna.