A cure for all ills: medicine in Bendigo

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Maw & Sons
England 19th – 20th
centuries
Pharmacy bottles
19th century
glass,
powdered rhubarb,
powdered cinnamon,
Quinnine sulphate,
compound tincture of
lavender
Collection Darren
Wright
TR Jones Dispensing
and Family Chemist
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Published in Bendigo
Quartzopolis by
FW Niven and Co,
Ballarat
1893
print
Courtesy Darren
Wright
Felton Grimwade
& Co
Melbourne 19th –
20th centuries
Snakebite treatment case
1860s
glass, tin, cotton,
paper, caffeine citrate
tablets, condes
crystals, lavender salt
Collection Darren
Wright
Pharmacy
From modest herbal beginnings,
by the end of the nineteenth century
pharmacy was a thriving multilayered
business offering everything
from medicine and ointments to
toiletries and household products.
Chemist shops were alluring, stocked
full of ointments and ingredients in
bottles of all shapes, sizes and colours.
Pharmacists were often the first
port of call for medical advice.
In contrast to the expense of a
doctor’s visit, pharmacists offered
an affordable, accessible service.
If age-old home remedies did not
work, pharmacists would diagnose
a complaint and prescribe a form
of inexpensive medicinal treatment
either ready-made or prepared there
and then. Early pharmacists would
often administer the cure themselves;
this practice was not illegal until
the end of the nineteenth century,
when Australian medical registration
acts barred pharmacists from doing
anything that was considered to be
the work of a doctor.
Initially, many pharmacists started
not as trained medical practitioners,
but as shrewd businessmen who
recognised the lucrative potential of
the over-the-counter health market.
Although requiring a vast knowledge
of the medicinal qualities of various
herbs and chemical substances, there
was no expectation a practitioner
would have any training other
than to have apprenticed under a
senior chemist. Formal training,
registration and examinations were
not introduced until later in the
nineteenth century.
While experimentation was the
key to advancement, lack of training
often meant that early prescribed
remedies had varying effect. Some
worked wonders while others were
virtually ineffective, or even worse,
caused additional problems. Just
as in other medical professions,
quackery was rife in pharmacy with
the production and sale of many
questionable patent and proprietary
medicines, none more famous than
Holloway’s ointment; a concoction
containing largely beeswax and
lanolin which swept the world and
gained popularity through clever
advertising campaigns and mass
production. 20
When compounding medicines
and ointments, pharmacists used
an array of ingredients, including
poisons and narcotics. These
ingredients, most commonly arsenic,
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