IN On this day (August 6) PA News got it wrong on the second item for 1859.
The advertising slogan "worth a guinea (105p in today's money) a box" was introduced in 1859 some 40 years before the German pharmacist Felix Hoffman discovered aspirin while working for Bayer in 1894. He patented his discovery in 1899.
Now Beecham's Powders were originally nothing more than aspirin powders flavoured with cinnamon. They did not come onto the market for some years after Aspirin was available.
The slogan "worth a guinea a box" was applied to Beecham's Pills. Beecham's Pills were a laxative preparation but in the prudish Victorian era constipation was unacceptable as a topic of conversation so trying to compose advertising copy for a laxative was very difficult.
John Savage, M.R. Pharm S.
Newlands Drive, York.
Updated: 12:40 Friday, August 17, 2001
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