The Midwest pioneer, his ills, cures, & doctors - University Library ...

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In 1845 W. W. Brown of
never did entirely replace the "stick." A popular drink of
the period was Sarsaparilla Mead, which was advertised not
only as a thirst-quencher, but as an aid to digestion and a
preventive of fevers, headaches, indigestion, and diarrhea.
Some drug stores advertised botanic medicines, Thomsonian
remedies, and vapor baths.
Lexington, among others, seems to have specialized in
botanic medicines; he listed those of Thomson, Mattson,
Beach, Curtis, Howard, House, and Professor Rafinesque.^
Truly the early drug store was the department store of
its day. As was the general store, it was willing, especially
during scarce-money days, to accept beeswax, ginseng,
flaxseed and hempseed, and other articles in trade. After
1840 the drug store inclined to restrict its functions more
specifically to drugs, only to become a general store again
in the tv/entieth century.
Druggists, like many doctors, learned their trade by the
apprentice system. Trained chemists were few. This may
account for the fact that by the middle of the century
the druggist was very often a German. In Cincinnati, and
to a certain extent in Evansville, St. Louis, and elsewhere,
Germans predominated in the drug business. At Cincinnati
in the 1850's Edward S. Wayne, at one time professor at
Ohio Medical College, received a salary of $7000 a year as
chief pharmacist with the drug establishment of Suire
and Eckstein. Wayne, Adolph Fennel, and others secured
a charter in 1850 for the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy,
the third school of its kind in the United States.
In its early days its quarters were the upstairs rooms of
W. J. M. Gordon's drug store.
Even fairly accurate estimates as to the importance of
drug manufacturing in the West are difficult to make.
The census of 1840 listed the output, including paints and
dyes, as follows: Ohio, $101,000; Indiana, $47,000; Illinois,
$19,000; and Michigan, $1,500. It is hard to believe that
the annual sales of Thomson's western manufactory, or
later,
of the eclectic tincture concentrate producers alone
did not equal or exceed this total.