Doctor Yeldall

September 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Ledger (September 30, 1775).

“To the surprise of myself and neighbours, found myself recovered to health.”

Doctor Yeldall apparently believed that testimonials worked.  In June 1775, he published an advertisement that included several testimonials from his patients.  Three months later, he once again promoted his “MEDICINAL WARE-HOUSE’ in Philadelphia with an advertisement that featured three new testimonials.  The notice gave the impression that the doctor had not solicited them, but instead merely published letters addressed “To Dr. YELDALL in Front-Street, Philadelphia” at the request of those who sent them.  “For the benefit of others I hope you will make the following public,” Nathan Agnomall’s testimonial began.  Similarly, John Campbell, who had suffered “dreadful ulcers in one of my leges,” implored the doctor: “I beg you may make it public, for the benefit of others labouring under the same calamity” that Yeldall’s medicines healed leg.

In his preamble to the testimonials, Yeldall described his “Doctor’s Family Medicines” as “so well known and approved of throughout most parts of the continent.”  Two of the testimonials did indeed come from beyond Philadelphia.  Campell listed his address as “Eversham, Burlington county,” in New Jersey, while Agnomall stated that he was “living in New-Haven, in Connecticut.”  The third testimonial, however, came from a resident of Philadelphia, George Smith, “living in Third-street, near Vine-street.”  Skeptics in that city could question the veracity of letters that supposedly arrived from other colonies, but they might know Smith or could seek him out to confirm what they saw printed in the newspaper advertisement.  Smith’s letter even revealed that he had been cured of a “consumptive disorder” and “to the surprise of myself and neighbours, found myself recovered to health.”  Many residents of Philadelphia living in Smith’s neighborhood could also testify to the efficacy of the Yeldall’s medicines, at least that was the inference in Smith’s letter.  Unlikely to attempt to track down Smith or interview any of his neighbors, prospective patients who had not found relief through any other means may have found this testimonial convincing enough to give Yeldall’s medicines a chance.  Even if they had doubts, the details in Smith’s letter gave them hope by encouraging them to believe something that was likely too good to be true.

June 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (June 22, 1775).

“The doctors family medicines, which are well known in most parts of the continent.”

Doctor Yeldall ran his advertisement for remedies available “at his medicinal ware-house” on Front Street in Philadelphia in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer at the same time that it appeared in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  He did, after all, claim that the “doctors family medicines” that he produced as an alternative to other patent medicines were “well known in most parts of the continent” and advised that “any person in the country may, be sending an account of their disorder … have advice and medicines as the nature of their complaint may require.”  Yeldall operated the eighteenth-century version of a mail order pharmacy.  Advertising in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer: Or, the Connecticut, Hudson’s River, New-Jersey, and Quebec Weekly Advertiser placed his notice before the eyes of many more prospective patients.  In addition to selling medicines, Yeldall also performed medical procedures.  Two of the four testimonials in the original advertisement described restoring sight “by taking off the film” from a patient’s eye and repairing “the deformity of a Hare-Lip.”  New York was close enough to Philadelphia that Yeldall may have expected that some prospective patients who exhausted their options in one place would travel to Philadelphia in hopes that he would successfully treat them.

The advertisements in the two newspapers were nearly identical.  The use of capital letters and italics varied, likely the result the decisions made by compositors in the two printing offices.  That was usually the case when advertisers submitted the same copy to multiple newspapers.  The version in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer lacked the longest of the four testimonials that ran in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  The compositor might have removed Alexander Martin’s description of how Yeldall “recovered me to my perfect health” after being “afflicted with a consumptive disorder for upwards of three years” in the interest of space.  Yeldall’s advertisement ran at the bottom of the final column on the third page of the June 22, 1775, edition of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, making it one of the last items inserted during the production of that issue.  The compositor, lacking space for the entire advertisement, may have simply removed one of the testimonials.  The notice still made the point that Yeldall supposedly cured several patients who “could obtain no relief” until they sought medical care from him.

June 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Ledger (June 17, 1775).

“I applied to Doctor YELDALL’S PUBLIC MEDICINES, which, in a short time, restored me to perfect health.”

An advertisement placed by “DOCTOR YELDALL” in the June 17, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger advised the public that he sold “MOST kinds of medicines” at his “MEDICINAL WARE-HOUSE” on Front Street in Philadelphia.  He carried “most patent medicines now in use” as well as his own line of “the Doctor’s Family Medicines,” which, he claimed, “are well known in most parts of the continent.”  Customers residing in the country could send orders for Yeldall to fill, while those in the city could arrange to “be waited on at their houses, and due attendance given through the cure of their disorder.”  The doctor did not charge for consultations, nor did he commence treatment except “where there is a probability of success.”  He attempted to build trust with prospective patients in his advertisement.

To that end, he also published a series of testimonials, hoping that former patients would prove even more convincing than his own description of his services.  Each started with the same phrase, “FOR the benefit of other be it made public,” suggesting that Yeldall solicited the testimonials and assisted in drafting them (or perhaps even wrote them himself).  In one, John Musgrove, who lived near Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, reported that he “was afflicted for a long time with a violent cough, spitting and fever” to the point that he “could scarce stand or walk.”  He sought assistance “but to no purpose, until [he] applied to Doctor YELDALL’S PUBLIC MEDICINES.”  They quickly restored him to “perfect health.”  Alexander Martin “of Kings-woods county, New-Jersey” similarly declared that he “was afflicted with a consumptive disorder for upwards of three years,” during which time he “applied to every man of skill that [he] could, but to no purpose.”  He even entered the “hospital at Philadelphia” and stayed for three months, enduring “a course of mercury” and “tried many other things in vain.”  Only after his discharge from the hospital did Martin seek aid from Yeldall, who “in a short time recovered me to my perfect health.”  According to Martin and Musgrove, the doctor’s methods were both fast and effective.

In addition to prescribing the right medicines to treat his patients’ maladies, Yeldall also performed medical procedures.  In one testimonial, Mary Irons of Queen’s County, Maryland, declared that she “was afflicted with blindness for many years.”  She “applied to several, but could obtain no relief until I applied to Doctor YELDALL, who brought me to the sight of one eye in a minute’s time, by taking off the film.”  John Dunbar “of the city of Philadelphia” told of a surgeon who unsuccessfully treated his daughter.  She had “the deformity of a Hare-Lip” that “broke open” after the surgeon “cut” it.  Dunbar then took his daughter to Yeldall, “who, to my satisfaction, did the operation in one minute, by the watch, and completed the cure in four days.”  Yeldall added a note that others with “the above mentioned deformity” did not need to “dispair,” no matter how “large or frightful, or hav[ing] been cut so often before,” because his procedure “will be done in one minute, and the cure completed in four days” or else he did not charge for his services.  Perhaps the focus on how quickly the doctor performed these operations was meant to reassure prospective patients that they would not experience prolonged discomfort during a procedure.

Yeldall’s promises seemed too good to be true … and they almost certainly were.  Yet the “DOCTOR” realized that some prospective patients were likely desperate for any sort of treatment that they could hope for a different outcome.  As they searched for hope, he expected that his own promises and, especially, testimonials supposedly composed by his former patients would convince the afflicted to give him a chance to restore them to health.