An apt example is the advertisement placed in the Virginia Gazette of September 21, 1769, by John Minson Galt at the outset of his long career (preceding page).
Turlington’s Balsam of Lifebottles as pictured in a brochure dated 1755-1757, preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pa. According to Turlington, the bottle was adopted in 1754 “to prevent the villainy of some persons who, buying up my empty bottles, have basely and wickedly put therein a vile spurious counterfeit sort.”
Turlington’s Balsam of Lifebottles as pictured in a brochure dated 1755-1757, preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pa. According to Turlington, the bottle was adopted in 1754 “to prevent the villainy of some persons who, buying up my empty bottles, have basely and wickedly put therein a vile spurious counterfeit sort.”
LONDONBy The Kings Royall Patent Granted toJANUY26 1754Rob.tTurlington For His Invented Balsam of Life
LONDONBy The Kings Royall Patent Granted to
JANUY26 1754Rob.tTurlington For His Invented Balsam of Life
Analysis of the Galt or any other advertisement of the time shows that the contents of a colonial apothecary shop fell into five categories: plant materials, animal extracts, metals and metallic derivatives, medical equipment, and prepared elixirs, pills, and the like.
Among the most popular of the prepared medicines—judging from the many advertisements of Dr. John Minson Galt in the years 1772-1774—were Dr. Keyser’s celebrated anti-venereal pills. These were backed by testimonials of two English and three French dukes, and Galt published lengthy accounts avowing that “the Patient is most effectually cured without any Inconvenience to himself, or being exposed to the Shame and Confusion of his Disaster being known to the nicest Observer.”
Not only were they supposed to cure syphilis, but “the happy effects ofKeyser’spills have often been proved in white Swellings, asthmas, Suppressions of the Urine, in the Palsy, Apoplexies, Sciaticks, in the Green Sickness, and more especially in the Yaws.”
“Mrs. Rednapp’s red fit drops” were among Dr. Pasteur’sfavorite patent medicines, and Daffy’s, Stoughton’s, and Bateman’s elixirs or drops were distributed not only by most colonial apothecaries but also by the keepers of general stores, ship captains, and others. In 1771 no fewer than nineteen packaged English medicines were offered for sale at the Post Office in Williamsburg!
The formulas for some of these, consisting of twenty or more separate ingredients, were printed in the principal pharmacopoeias and were commonly made up by doctors and apothecaries for their own use and for sale. Dr. Pasteur and Dr. James Carter both ordered quantities of empty bottles for Stoughton’s and Daffy’s compounds.
Dependence on imported patent medicines was a development that several observers deplored. Dr. Schoepf, for instance, thought American physicians should patriotically discontinue “making use almost wholly of foreign medicines, with which in large measure they might easily dispense, if they were willing to give their attention to home-products, informing themselves more exactly of the properties and uses of the stock of domestic medicines already known.”
Jefferson in hisNotes on the State of Virginiahad listed twenty-one medicinal plants native to the state, and others before him had commented on the abundance of simple remedies afforded by the woods and marshes of tidewater Virginia. Indeed, it appears that colonial medical men in the seventeenth century had gathered the largest part of their own medicines close at hand, and that the growing importation of patent mixtures was matched by an increasing export of native drugs.
By the middle of the eighteenth century considerable quantities of at least eight medicinal plants were being shipped to England from Virginia, among them ipecacuanha, sassafras, balsam of Tolu, ginseng, and snakeroot. The last two formed the bulk of the export; of them more in a moment.
Seneca rattlesnake root orPolygala Virginianawas a mainstay of medical treatment in eighteenth-century Virginia. The original source of this drawing has not been identified.
Seneca rattlesnake root orPolygala Virginianawas a mainstay of medical treatment in eighteenth-century Virginia. The original source of this drawing has not been identified.
However, if there were in colonial towns “some apothecaries shops wainscotted or papered with advertisements, recommending quack medicines,” a large number of rural practitioners preferred to make up their remedies. “I do not apply to the Apothecaries Shops for my Means,” said the advertisement of one such, “I compact my own medicines myself. The produce ofVirginiaEarth, with a few trifles besides, supports my Body, ... and many others besides, without bleeding, sweating, physicking, or Bitters.”
Whether used from conviction that such means were better, or because the imported medicines were too expensive, the result was the same: such mild cures were less likely to interfere with the healing course of nature than did the complex, often drastic, and sometimes revolting compounds of the leading English physicians.
From inventories of the estates of deceased apothecaries as well as from their newspaper advertisements comes evidence as to the equipment they kept and used in their shops. The remarkable thing is to see how little the essential items have changed over the course of the centuries—alike before and since the colonial era.
The mortar and pestle, traditional symbol of the apothecary’s calling and often used as the sign of his shop, was to be found in Williamsburg shops in many sizes and materials. The largest recorded was a bell-metal mortar and iron pestle belonging to Dr. Thomas Wharton and weighing 168 pounds. Wharton also owned a large marble mortar and pestle, two small ones of marble, and a “Porphrey Stone & Muller.” Later in the century, as the medical profession learned that toxic quantities of metal dust could come from the use of metal mortars, ceramic and glass became widely used.
Glass and ceramic containers by the hundreds were also used to store simple ingredients and compounds for sale. Dr. Pasteur at one time, for instance, ordered 246 white glass vials ranging in capacity from two drams to twelve ounces. Dr. Alexander Middleton, whose tory sympathies cost him his Williamsburg shop and contentsduring the Revolution, listed more than fifty dozen bottles, from one ounce size to two gallons, along with dozens of pill pots, ointment pots, and syrup pots. Glass seems to have been the most common type of container, with earthenware “gallipots” probably second.
Among the articles with which the Williamsburg shop is furnished are a number that belonged to the first Dr. Galt that have been obtained from his descendants or generously loaned by them to Colonial Williamsburg. The largest is the secretary-bookcase that stands in the back office, the most numerous are the scores of glass bottles and cardboard pillboxes that cluster on one section of the shelves, and perhaps the most interesting are his diplomas in anatomy, surgery, and midwifery that hang on the wall. Vying with the last name is the account book displaying a charge of 7 shillings against Patrick Henry—but no entry to show that the bill was ever paid.
It would require more space than is here available to describe, or even to list, all the articles in the shop today, and to identify all the drugs, herbs, powders, and compounds that would have been contained in the numerous bottles, jars, boxes, and drawers of the shop. The quantity and variety, however, may be taken as typical of a well provided apothecary shop of colonial America.
One should note in particular the surgical instruments in their velvet-lined cases. These have been collected from various sources—including one case of lancets and a set of scales from the Galt family—and are of the period. Dr. Alexander Middleton claimed to have been deprived in the Revolution of instruments for amputating, trepanning, lithotomy, cupping, couching, dissecting, dentistry, and midwifery. The estate of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie of Williamsburg inventoried three sets of instruments for amputating, trepanning, and lithotomy.
The McKenzie inventory also listed the medical books in Dr. McKenzie’s library. There were more than seventy titles, of which all but a few were medical treatises, someof them in several volumes. Among them were listedJames’ DispensatoryandShaw’s Dispensatory. These, along withBate’s Dispensatoryand theLondon Dispensatorywere among the most widely read, owned, and used books in the colony, and not alone by doctors or apothecaries. One or more was almost certain to be in the library of every planter of tidewater Virginia, a kind of “What to do till the Doctor comes” manual for the home treatment of the planter himself, his wife and children, his relatives and neighbors, and his slaves. These dispensatories avoided the need or cost of a doctor’s services unless the trouble was so serious as to need “expert” attention.
This was by no means such an unwise system as at first glance may appear. After all, the doctor would probably dose with the same medicines from the same dispensatory, and with the same result. And while quacks were plentiful, well-trained physicians were extremely scarce, especially in rural areas where pay was sure to be slow and skimpy.
In view of the general state of medical knowledge and practice throughout the eighteenth century—bleeding being always a foremost treatment of numerous ailments—it seems likely that the liberal use of native herbs, being for the most part harmless, was probably the safest and most effective course of medication. Surely human and animal excreta, mashed-up insects, and the like, which were not uncommon in London prescriptions, could not have been more curative than rattlesnake root and ginseng, whose praises were sung by the famous William Byrd II:
The Earth has never produced any vegetable so friendly to man as Ginseng. Nor do I say this at Random, or by the strength of my Faith, but by my own Experience. I have found it very cordial and reviving after great Fatigue, it warms the Blood, frisks the Spirits strengthens the Stomach and comforts the Bowels exceedingly. All this it performswith out any of those naughty Effects that might make men too troublesome and impertinent to their poor Wives.Then as for the Rattlesnake Root the Reputation of it encreases every day. The Tincture of it has done Wonders in the Gout.... By its purging, its deuretick, and diaphoretick Qualities it is of great use in the Dropsy ... of great Efficacy in Pleuretick Feaver ... [and] a Specifick against worms....For the Bite of a mad Dog, ... it may perhaps be as Sure a Remedy; as for the Bite of a Rattlesnake.
The Earth has never produced any vegetable so friendly to man as Ginseng. Nor do I say this at Random, or by the strength of my Faith, but by my own Experience. I have found it very cordial and reviving after great Fatigue, it warms the Blood, frisks the Spirits strengthens the Stomach and comforts the Bowels exceedingly. All this it performswith out any of those naughty Effects that might make men too troublesome and impertinent to their poor Wives.
Then as for the Rattlesnake Root the Reputation of it encreases every day. The Tincture of it has done Wonders in the Gout.... By its purging, its deuretick, and diaphoretick Qualities it is of great use in the Dropsy ... of great Efficacy in Pleuretick Feaver ... [and] a Specifick against worms....
For the Bite of a mad Dog, ... it may perhaps be as Sure a Remedy; as for the Bite of a Rattlesnake.
This list includes only those medical practitioners of eighteenth-century Williamsburg who operated apothecary shops. It does not include physicians who may have made up and dispensed their own prescriptions but did not operate a shop.
Andrew Anderson (1768-1771)
Anderson studied medicine in England after serving an apprenticeship with Dr. James Carter. Anderson returned to Williamsburg in 1768 and formed a partnership with Dr. Carter and they purchased the shop of William Biers. Anderson moved to New Kent County in 1771 and in 1774 married Betsey Burnet, “an agreeable young Lady, with a handsome Fortune.”
Robert Anderson (1764)
Anderson advertised his apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1764.
William Biers (1765-1768)
Biers operated a druggist shop in Williamsburg from about 1765 to 1768 when he sold his business to Dr. Carter and Dr. Anderson. In 1769 Biers announced his intention to leave the colony.
James Carter (1751-1779)
Dr. Carter opened his apothecary shop, “the Unicorn’s Horn,” in Williamsburg in 1751 and operated it until 1779 when he sold it to his brother William Carter. James continued to practice medicine in Williamsburg until his death in 1794.
William Carter (1773-1784)
In 1771 William Carter established his medical practice in Gloucester County. In 1773 he came to Williamsburg and formed a partnership with his brother James. Six years later he purchased his brother’s share of “the Unicorn’s Horn,” and in 1784 he moved to Richmond where he opened another apothecary shop.
Robert Davidson (1737-1739)
Dr. Davidson, mayor of Williamsburg, operated a druggist shop in partnership with Thomas Goodwin from 1737 to 1739 when Davidson died.
John Minson Galt (1769-1808)
After studying medicine in England, Galt opened his apothecary shop in 1769. From 1775 until 1778 he operated a shop in partnership with Dr. William Pasteur. In 1795 Galt was appointed visiting physician to the hospital for the insane and in 1799 he was appointed a member of the court of directors for the hospital.
George Gilmer, Sr. (1731-1757)
A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Gilmer established an apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1731. He operated the shop in connection with a successful medical practice until his death in 1757.
George Gilmer, Jr. (1766-1771)
After completing his medical studies in England, Gilmer returned to Williamsburg in 1766 andopened his apothecary shop. In 1771 he moved to Charlottesville and established a successful practice.
Thomas Goodwin (1735-1739)
Goodwin owned a druggist shop in Williamsburg and apparently did not engage in a medical practice. From 1737 to 1739 he conducted the shop in partnership with Dr. Robert Davidson.
Peter Hay (1744-1766)
Dr. Hay conducted an apothecary shop in Williamsburg from 1744 until his death in 1766 when he was described as “one of our most eminent physicians.”
Kenneth McKenzie (1732-1755)
Dr. McKenzie owned an apothecary shop in Williamsburg from 1732 until his death in 1755.
Alexander Middleton (1776)
Dr. Middleton operated an apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1776. Middleton, a tory, was forced to leave Virginia during the Revolutionary War.
Robert Nicolson (1779-1783)
Dr. Nicolson served his apprenticeship with Dr. Pasteur and then studied medicine in England. He returned to Williamsburg in 1779 and opened his apothecary shop. After the Revolutionary War he moved his shop to Yorktown where he practiced medicine until his death in 1798.
William Pasteur (1757-1791)
After the completion of his apprenticeship with Dr. George Gilmer, Sr., Pasteur studied in England for about a year. He returned to Williamsburg in 1757 and established an apothecary shop. From 1775 to 1778 he operated the shop in partnership with John Minson Galt.
George Pitt (1744-1768)
Dr. Pitt, born in 1724 in England and “bred a Surgeon,” established his apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1744 at the “Sign of the Rhinoceros.” In 1768 he closed his shop and returned to England. He later came back to Virginia but no longer engaged in medicine or pharmacy. In 1776 Pitt, a tory, left Virginia again. He died later that year in England.
Thomas Wharton (1735-1746)
Wharton arrived in Virginia about 1703 as an indentured servant to Dr. Richard Wright. By 1735 Wharton had established an apothecary shop in Williamsburg, which he operated until his death in 1746. He left his drugs, medicines, and shop utensils to Dr. McKenzie.
Whitfield J. Bell, Jr.,The Colonial Physician & Other Essays. New York: Science History Publications, 1975.
——, “Medical Practice in Colonial America,” inSymposium on Colonial Medicine. Williamsburg: Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown Celebration Commission and the Virginia 350th Anniversary Commission, 1957.
John B. Blake,Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630-1822. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.
Wyndham B. Blanton,Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century. Richmond: Garrett and Massie, 1931.
——,Medicine in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1930.
John Duffy,A History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-1866. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1968.
Harold B. Gill, Jr.,The Apothecary in Colonial Virginia. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1972.
George B. Griffenhagen,Drug Supplies in the American Revolution. Washington, D. C.: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, Bulletin No. 225, 1961.
——,Tools of the Apothecary. Washington, D. C.: American Pharmaceutical Association, 1957.
Patrick Henderson, “Smallpox and Patriotism: The Norfolk Riots, 1768-1769.”Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXXIII (October 1965), pp. 413-424.
Thomas P. Hughes,Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699. Williamsburg: Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, 1957.
Thomas Jefferson,Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955.
Edward Kremers and George Urdang,History of Pharmacy: A Guide and a Survey. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1951.
Geoffrey Marks and William K. Beatty, “The Virginia Colony,” inThe Story of Medicine in America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973.
Benjamin Rush,The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, ed. George W. Corner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948.
Richard Harrison Shryock,Medicine and Society in America: 1660-1860. New York: New York University Press, 1960.
C. J. S. Thompson,The Mystery and Art of the Apothecary. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1929.
Surry Wood,The Old Apothecary Shop. Watkins Glen, N.Y.: Century House, 1956.
The Apothecary in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburgwas first published in 1965 and previously reprinted in 1968, 1970, 1973, 1978, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990. Written by Thomas K. Ford, now retired as editor of Colonial Williamsburg publications, it is based largely on a monograph by Harold B. Gill, Jr. That study has been published asThe Apothecary in Colonial Virginia(Williamsburg, Virginia, 1972).