Abstract:

Bile beans was a very popular proprietary medicine during the twentieth century in the UK. The product consisted of a variety of purgatives, cholagogues and carminatives formulated into a pill and advertised for ‘inner health’. The product was devised in Australia in 1899, survived a damning judgement in a law court in Scotland in 1905, became a brand leader in the 1930s and was on sale until the mid-1980s.

Keywords: Alternative medicine

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Pharmaceutical and Analytical R&D, AstraZeneca, Macclesfield, UK