Lloyd - Elixir & Flavoring Extracts Formulae - Soil and Health Library

persons weakened by fever and ague, or by a copious perspiration
produced by the heat of summer. Persons recovering from bilious
fever should use it freely, to prevent a relapse. From half a wineglass
to a wineglassful is to be taken once or twice a day, as occasion may
require.
“Prepared and sold by John T. Heinisth, Druggist, East King
St., Lancaster, Pa.”
The first of these trade preparations which the writer can
recall was thrown upon the market in this city (Cincinnati) about 1863,
under the name “Sim’s Cordial Elixir of Calisaya.”
The first published formula that I have found for any of this class of
preparations, under the name Elixir, is the formula we give for Elixir of
Calisaya by Mr. Alfred B. Taylor, from the Journal of Pharmacy, January, 1859.
The Druggists’ Circular of same date states that up to that time no formula for
that preparation had been published.
It was of a beautiful red color, nicely flavored, and very
pleasant to the taste, and it was the forerunner, or at least among the
first, of the line of pharmaceuticals subsequently scattered so
abundantly over our country. Afterward the “Elixir of Calisaya and
Pyrophosphate of Iron” appeared, and then “Calisaya, Pyrophosphate of
Iron, and Strychnine.” Soon traveling agents for pharmaceutical
houses began to court physicians and so licit them to specify particular
brands when prescribing, thus necessitating duplicates upon the
apothecaries’ shelves of the same preparation, and about the year 1874
the elixir mania was at its height. The burden thus thrown upon our
pharmacists was considerable—more in the aggregate than most of us
can realize. Elixirs of the same name, and which should have been
identical, were duplicated, or multiplied, in the same store, and each
differed in appearance and flavor from all the others. If a prescription
was filled with an elixir of calisaya prepared by one maker, it could not
be refilled with that of another, since such a course would render it
liable to be returned by the purchaser as a different medicine from that
obtained at first. Physician of the highest reputation were accustomed
to specify the brand of elixir desired, and the writer can remember that
time and again he has hurried to distant portions of the city searching
for an elixir of a particular make and which was not in stock, although
several substitutes for what should have been the same preparation
were on the shelves. In addition to the above-named aggravation,
combinations, or rather associations, of substances incompatible under