For any of you who don't feel up to puzzling out the old time copperplate script, here's a line by line transcription of the receipt, followed by some notes on the ingredients. Don't you wish you had some?
Baltimore Md 217 Courtland Street
Office of Henry Goldsborough
Attorney at Law January 7th 1889
The receipt - sealed and handed to me me this day by Alexander Dodd
Senior bookkeeper & accountant who resides at no. 1431 West Lanvale Street
near Stricker Street in this city and copied by Henry Goldsborough. It
is in these words
Receipt for making Hopkins Antalgic
4 Gallons of the juice of Strawmoneim or Thorn Apple or James
-town weed - all the same articles
4 Gallons of good Whiskey or Cologne Spirit - the ordinary
whiskey answers every purpose I use it
3 lb of best African bird Cayenne pepper (pulverized) the
James-town weed you gather in the months of July, August
and September, when it begins to bloƒsom & you cut it off near
the ground_ Cut it up, stock-leaves-berry and all and
put it in a mortar_ (the old-time hominy mortar answers
well for such purpose, if you can get them_ You then beat
and bruise them all up well with pestle, adding water_
Enough to put them in a pulpy state, they give out their
virtue to water, also to whiskey or alcohol_ Then you put
the whole maƒs in a preƒs and preƒs all the juice out you
poƒsibly can get out & you then put the juice in good
tight non-hooped barrels, and it is ready for use and will
keep for years_ use these proportions of articles in any quantity
you make_ You then put these articles in tin-boilers on a
hot stove or range and bring it to a good boil for five or ten
minutes_ then take them off and when cool put the article
in good tight barrels and it is ready for use_ When filling
your bottles, put the article in a good tight barrel with a
hole in the top (say six or eight inches in diameter) so as
you can keep it stirred up with a long paddle occasionally
while filling the bottles _ the spigot you fill from, put about
two inches from the bottom of the barrels, before you commence
filling your bottles_ put a half teaspoonful of the Oil
of Sassafras in each bottle, it is put in as a Deodorizer
(not needed for the Hippoatria for horses)
The receipt for Hippoatria is the same exactly with the
Oil left out, as it is not needed for horses, being put in for
man to make a pleasant flavor_ to take out part of
the Dregs out of the Antalgic, paƒs or pour all through
a fine wire-sifter into a tub or large veƒsel before you
put it in the barrel you fill from, when the bottles are
filled, the dregs settling in them should be from one half
to three quarters of an inch thick or deep in bottom of
the bottles—no dregs to be taken out of the Hippoatria
or oil to be put in whatever, as it is not neceƒsary
July 1st 1886 True
S. B. Hopkins
I have as yet never taken out any of the dregs out of
the Antalgic, but think it better to take out part of
them; as it burns too much for some who have their
sensitive skins_ There is a whiskey on the market
here called "High Wines" just from the still, which
is very strong and fiery (not adulterated) selling for $1.20
cents per gallon, I think it would bear one fourth of
water or more and then be as strong or stronger, than
the ordinary whiskey, which could be used and it would
leƒsen the cost or expense considerably, I have [^ not] tried it yet
The Ingredients
Here are a few cogent facts concerning the ingredients. First, Larry W. Mitich of The Intriguing World of Weeds (www.wssa.net) tells us that...
Jimsonweed, Jamestown weed, datura, stramonium, thornapple, tolguacha: These are some of the more than a score of common English names used for jimsonweed (Datura stramonium L. #(3) DATST), a cosmopolitan weed of worldwide distribution. The above names are those used most widely in the United States. Jimsonweed is a corruption of Jamestown weed, the name given the plant in colonial days because it first grew in and around Jamestown, VA. It had been brought from England as a medicinal plant. Boiled with hog's grease, jimsonweed made a healing salve for burns from "fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, and lightning."
The genus Datura contains over a dozen species. Of these, jimsonweed, small datura (D. discolor Bernh. # DATDI), sacred datura (D. innoxia Mill. # DATIN), and Hindu datura (D. metel L. # DATME) are found naturalized in the United States, and several other species are cultivated occasionally for their conspicuous flowers and fragrance. Most daturas are large, coarse annual herbs, with large, alternate leaves and large, showy, tubular flowers.
Jimsonweed grows 3 to 5 ft tall and is glabrous or nearly so. Leaves are ovate with irregular, acuate lobes, 3 to 8 inch long. The erect flowers are 4 inches long with a 5-pointed corolla are white (or purple in the variety tatula sometimes treated as a separate species). The fruit is an erect, ovoid, spiny capsule, and 2 inches long, which opens by four regular valves.
Jimsonweed is widely distributed, ranging from Florida to Texas, north into Canada, and in the far western states, in waste areas, and in cultivated fields. It is a major weed in soybeans [Glycine max (L.)Merr.] worldwide. Jimsonweed in common on rich barnyard soils and on heavily used portions of pastures.
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) named D. stramonium in Species Plantarum published in 1753. He named the genus Datura for dhatura, an ancient Hindu word for the plant. The specific name is from stramon, derived from the New Latin stramonium, a name applied to thornapple. Stramonium in turn was derived from the Greek strychnos, nightshade, plus manikos, mad.
Datura has been known as a poisonous plant from ancient times. Decoctions of it were used frequently to poison people. Discussions of the plant and its activity are found universally in medical literature from the earliest times, and references to it were made by Virgil, Shakespeare, and others.
<p class="normalblockquotefollowing">Datura species contain several solanaceous alkaloids. Principal among them are atropine, hyoscyamine, and hyoscine. Total alkaloid content is high, varying between 0.25% and 0.7%. Datura alkaloids are useful in medicine and have been investigated both chemically and pharmacologically. Before World World War I, the United States imported annually about 150,000 lb of dried leaves at a cost of 2 to 8 cents per lb, and more than 10,000 lb of seed, costing 3 to 7 cents per lb.
Poisoning may occur from an overdose of plant preparations or any of its alkaloids, and human poisoning from ingestion of parts or plant decoctions is common. Small amounts produce symptoms and larger amounts death if treatment is not swift and successful. On the basis of the toxicity of pure atropine, 4 to 5 g of the crude leaf or seed approximates the fatal dose in a child.
Symptoms may appear within a few minutes after ingestion of plant decoctions or, in the case of leaf or seed ingestion, not for several hours. Victims become delerious, incoherent, and perform insensible motions, commonly picking at imaginary objects on themselves or in the air. If a less than lethal amount of the plant has been consumed or if measures taken in treatment are successful, acute symptoms subside after 12 to 48 hours.
Worldwide losses occur in all classes of livestock from plants eaten fresh, in hay, or in ensilage. Chickens are poisoned by ingestion of seeds. Symptons in livestock are similar to those produced in humans. However, livestock find the foul-smelling weed distaseful, and they are poisioned only when forced to eat the plant through shortage of desirable forage.
Jimsonweed is unusual: human poisonings are reported more commonly than are animal poisonings. The plant's large, showy flowers and spiny capsules especially intrigue children and lead to poisoning either from sucking the nectar from the base of the corolla tube or from ingesting the seeds. In ancient times, a tea was made from the leaves to relieve asthma; such preparations account for many poisonings. Poisoning also has occurred from datura seeds being ingested as impurities in flour or in bean mixtures. Datura occasionally is used deliberately for its hallucinogenic effects.
The narcotic powers of jimsonweed were known in the Old World since the beginning of recorded history. In the Orient, goats were observed to act strangely after eating the plant; they would try to walk on their hind feet like humans. Scholars speculate that jimsonweed was the drug inhaled by the Delphic oracles, who mumbled their prophesies while seated on a gold tripod over a chasm that emitted mysterious, narcotic vapors. Today jimsonweed is still being experimented with as an hallucinogen.
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson includes Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1785. The appendix, written by Charles Thompson (secretary of the Continental Congress, an authority on Indians and an adopted member of the Delaware tribes) included this entry on a hallucinogenic drug used by Virginia's Patowomeke Indians: "There is a plant, or weed, called the Jamestown weed, of a very singular quality. The late Dr. Bond (co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of the Pennsylvania Hospital) informed me that he had under his care a patient, a young girl, who had put the seeds of this plant into her eye, which dilated the pupil to such a degree, that she could see in the dark, but in the light was almost blind. The effect that the leaves had when eaten by a ship's crew that arrived at Jamestown are well known."
Though use of Datura species can cause destructive rages, terrifying hallucinations and even death, most had (and have) medicinal uses at lower dosages. Before tobacco became their principal crop, the Virginia colonists exported Jamestown weed to England as a relief for the congestion of gonorrhea. But even small amounts could be powerful, as described by Robert Beverly in The History and Present State of Virginia:
"The Jamestown weed ...is supposed to be one of the greatest coolers in the world. This being an early plant, was gathered very young for a boiled salad, but some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebillion of Bacon [1676]; and some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows [grimaces] at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.
"In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves—though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed."
On July 14, 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following letter to a friend who had sent him a new poisonous botanic specimen from the southwest, with the idea that Jefferson might want to add it to his collection in the Monticello gardens. He did not plant it for obvious reasons, and commented:
"I have so may grandchildren and others who might be endangered by the poison plant, that I think the risk overbalances the curiousity of trying it. The most elegant thing of that kind known is a preparation of the Jamestown weed, Datura Stramonium, invented by French in the time of Robespierre. Every man of firmness carried it constantly in his pocket to anticipate the guillotine. It brings on the sleep of death as quietly as fatigue does the ordinary sleep, without the least struggle or motion. Condorcet, who had recourse to it, was found lifeless on his bed a few minutes after his landlady had left him there, and even the slipper which she had observed half suspended on this foot was not shaken off."
The Marquis de Condorcet, mentioned in the letter, was a mathematician and philosopher who was condemned during the French Revolution.
Well, so much for ingredient the first. Whiskey we all know about; Cologne Spirit is an old fashioned name for ethanol, or pure grain alcohol. Ahem.
Yes, there IS such a thing as "African Bird Cayenne Pepper." It's just a particular variety of chili pepper. From foodlocker.com:
This wildly hot, North African chili pepper gets its name from the fact that the plant seeds are dispersed by wild birds that eat its fruits. African Bird pepper is the North African equivalent of our cayenne pepper. These fiery devils arrived in Africa around 1500 AD, soon after Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World. Used throughout Africa, in sauces, soups, and stews and as a condiment.
Roopa Chari, M.D., writing for VegSource Interactive, Inc. (www.vegsource.com/articles/chari_cayenne.htm) tells us that:
All hot peppers are botanically called capsicum. They are put into different groups depending on the various species, such as Capsicum annum and Capsicum frutescens. Cayenne refers to one variety of capsicum but over the years it has become synonymous with capsicum and refers to most hot varieties of chilies.
The potency of cayenne is determined by the intensity of its heat. This is determined by the quantity of the chemicals in cayenne and its resins. The more of these chemicals that are in cayenne and the hotter it is the stronger it is indicates it is more effective in healing. The heat is measured in heat units which are called Scoville Units or heat units. Capsicum is rated between 0 to 300,000 heat units.
Most cayenne peppers are between 30,000 to 80,000 heat units. Paprika has no heat and is rated 0 heat units. Jalapeno peppers are between 50,000 to 80,000 heat units, Serrano peppers are approximately 100,000 heat units, African Bird Peppers are 200,000 heat units and Mexican habaneros are between 250,000-300,000 heat units.
Who remembers good old Jethro Kloss's Back to Eden from their hippy days?
There are several species of Capsicum, but the most prominent are the Capsicum Annuum and the Capsicum Fastigiatum-Guinea or African Bird's Eye Pepper. The last named is the official article, and is possessed of greater medicinal virtue; yet the small American species are nearly its equal. The fruit of the Fastigiatum is quite small, while that of the American species is very much larger and is heart-shaped. The African species is quite a shrub, while the American is more like an herb in appearance. Capsicum, strange though it may seem, is not a true pepper. The popular but erroneous idea is that anything that is hot is a pepper, and that therefore Capsicum must belong to the pepper family. The African or small varieties are the most pungent-I should say nearly twice as much so as the others, but owing, I suppose to the American species being cheaper, it is used as a substitute for the African. They both contain a resin and an oil, each of which is very acrid, sharp, and biting. Its properties are completely extracted by 98% alcohol, and to a considerable extent by vinegar or boiling water.
One of the best LINIMENTS in use is prepared as follows: Boil gently for ten minutes one tablespoonful of cayenne pepper in one pint of cider vinegar. Bottle that hot, unstrained. This makes a powerfully stimulating external application for deep-seated congestions, sprains, etc.
So we can see that Samuel wasn't fooling around. Or then again, gathering and pestling jimson weed in the heat of the summer, mixing the juice with gallons of pure grain alcohol, stirring in the chili pepper, sitting around while it boiled and steamed? Good work if you can get it. Men were men back in those days.
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