Page 21 - BBR magazine 140 - 30yrs issue

Ireland’s first Inspector of Anatomy following the passage of the 1832 Anatomy Act, which legalised the supply of corpses to teaching hospitals and ended the practice of body snatching. He died in Dublin in 1871, but Murray's name is perpetuated in Murray Street, off Fisherwick Place, Belfast, which he helped to develop. But his lasting
claim to fame is his fluid magnesia product, which eventually sold worldwide under the name Milk Of Magnesia. All very worthy you might think but Murray’s firm were not above using sly quack advertising to promote their product
In 1849 a twelve page pamphlet was published in Wolverhampton that purported to be a “report of a trial, which took place at the Guildhall County Court, London, on Friday, July 13, 1849. The Public & Medical Men. Griffiths v Walford”. Mr Samuel Griffiths, oil and tallow merchant, of Wolverhampton (where the pamphlet was printed) and proprietor of the wonderfully weird sounding ‘ Hot- Neck Grease’ (lubrication for sheet metal rollers). Mr Griffiths was in
Above: Aqua & green bottles embossed ‘Sir Murrays/ Patent/ Re carbonated/ Fluid magnesia.’
perfumers was dissolved in 1801 with the perfumery side of the business being carried on by Richard and his son James Thomas (and as agents for Thomas) till about c.1823 at 106 Hatton Garden. A subsequent venture between the two brothers as perfumers, hardwaremen and colourmen at the same address was also dissolved on 31st December 1806. In 1811 Richard Rowney was made bankrupt, the firm then becoming R Rowney & Son. Richard eventually died in 1824 & was buried at Elim Chapel Fetter Lane, age 69.
This Stoneware bottle is impressed ‘SURGEON MURRAY’S/ PATENT’ and ‘EX’. Apart from the crude early look the EX tells us this is a bottle dating to 1817-34: an excise duty during those years charged on stoneware bottles required them to be stamped with 'EX'. But who was the surgeon?
There's lots of information on Google about the surgeon Sir James Murray who was born in Culnady, Co Londonderry. Educated in Edinburgh, at the age of 19 he was appointed apothecary at Belfast's Dispensary and Fever Hospital (later the Royal) but left after a year in 1808 to set up on his own as surgeon and apothecary in High Street, Belfast. In
London on business when "he felt
himself taken ill with a violent
irritability of the stomach" (he got
heart burn) and he went to a chemists and druggists shop, Messrs. Lunn and Walford in Aldersgate-street in order to get a dose of Murray's fluid magnesia. Horror of horrors, Mr. Walford, assuring Griffiths that it would be all right because he, Walford, was a surgeon, gave him Epsom Salts instead (Epson’s being Murray’s big rival). Griffiths was immediately very ill and decided to sue Walford for damages.
The supposed impartial report claimed that whilst the jury was out, the judge and the opposing counsel and solicitor all asked to try Sir Murray’s medical beverage combined with his ‘Acid Syrup’ and pronounced it most excellent. There is also a much rarer blue glass bottle, probably c.1860, With ‘SIR J MURRAY’S/ CORDIAL CAMPHOR’ that may be the ‘syrup’. Mr Mellor, council for Mr Griffith was very quick to claim that it was just as well the jury hadn’t had any before they retired in case they were swayed by how nice it was. In fact they found for Griffiths anyway. Beneath this funny tale is another: the complex battle between doctors, lawmakers, druggists and proprietory medicine vendors about who was qualified to prescribe.
Above: Blue glass ‘Sir J Murrays/ Cordial Camphor.’
1829 while exploring the therapeutic uses of magnesium carbonate, Murray patented a production process for ‘fluid magnesia’, a mild laxative and antacid, and set up a factory in Belfast to produce the medicine commercially. Most bottles are nice chunky embossed ones in aqua or green glass and have a 1870-80 feel about them but this ceramic one may be his first packaging.
It was used to treat the lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Marquis of Anglesey, & was so successful that he was appointed resident physician to Anglesey and two subsequent Lords Lieutenants, and eventually knighted. He also became Inspector of Anatomy in the Dublin College of Surgeons and published pioneering works on matters varying from chemical fertilizers to the effects of climatic conditions on health as a cause of epidemics. Murray was also
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Above: The 12 page pamphlet from 1849 purportedly reporting the trial at Guildhall County Court.
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