freshest drugs and medicines . . . are continued to be 

 sold as usual." However a cautionary note was added 

 that drugs and medicines had iieen ''constantly im- 

 ported every fall and spring to June last."' Implicit in 

 the advertising is the suggestion that the securing of 

 new supplies was highlv unccriain.* 



A letter dated December 2, 1775, from a British 

 officer in Boston to a friend in Edinburgh observed 

 that "many of our men are sick, and fresh provisions 

 very dear." However, the otlicer added, "but the 

 Rebels must be in a much worse condition. . . ."" " 

 Drugs were imported into Boston during the siege as 

 evidenced by an advertisement on February 22, 1 776, 

 announcing "just imported from LONDON and to be 

 sold at Mr. Dalton's Store, on the Long-Wharf, a 

 proper assortment of Drugs and Medicines of the Best 

 quality in Cases." '- 



By the end of Februar\ 1 776, Washington had 

 decided to try to end the siege of Boston by seizing 

 Dorchester Heights and placing his artillery there in a 

 position to bombard the town. General Howe 

 believed it was time to leave, and tiie British evacu- 

 ated on March 1 7. 



As the Continental Army moved into Boston, 

 there was an outcry that the British had poisoned a 

 supply of drugs left behind. On April 15 the Boston 

 Gazette reported that "it is absolutely fact that the 

 Doctors of the diabolical ministerial butcher when 

 they evacuated Boston, intermixed and left 26 weight 

 of Arsenick with the medicines which they left in the 

 Alms House." ^^ Then, a week later, on April 22, 

 appeared a series of testimonials that had been made 

 by Joseph Warren. Daniel Scott, and Frederick 

 Ridgley at \Vatertown on April 3d "by order of the 

 Director-General of the Continental Hospital." 

 Warren swore under oath that on or about March 

 29 he had gone into the workhouse [almshouse] 

 "lately improved as an hospital by the British troops 

 stationed in said town" and upon examining the 

 state of "a large cjuantity of Medicine" left in the 

 medicinal storeroom had found about 12 or 14 pounds 

 of arsenic intermixed with the drugs, which were 

 found "to be chiefly ca[)ital articles and those most 

 tjenerallv in demand." ^^ 



Despite this incident, we have the word of Morgan 

 that "a large, though unassorted stock of medicines" 

 was collected in Boston when the British evacuated. ^^ 

 Hospital .Surgeons Ebenezer Crosby and Frederick 

 Ridgley reported that "at the evacuation of Boston . . . 

 all the Mates of the Hospital that could be spared 

 from Cambridge . . . were employed in packing 

 up and sending ofl" [to C^aminidge] drugs, medicines 

 and other hospital stores, collected by order of Dr. 

 Morgan, the quantity of which appeared great." ^^ 



Inasmuch as few medicines were listed in the 

 inventors- of stores left by the British on the wharfs 

 and in the scuttled ships in the harbor,''' it appears 

 that most of these drugs obtained in Boston were 

 confiscated from the homes, offices, and shops of the 

 Lovalists who fled when the British evacuated. 

 Morgan reported that he had taken possession of the 

 medicines and furnitine of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner's 

 shop, and a small stock of drugs from the office of Dr. 

 William Perkins, a private practitioner.'* No inven- 

 torv of these supplies has been located thus far. but 

 a contemporarv biographer of Sylvester Gardiner 

 records that the confiscated drugs from his shop 

 "filled from 2(1 to 25 wagons." '^ This is not unlikely 

 because Gardiner's apothecary shop was one of the 

 largest and most prosperous in the Colonies prior to 

 the Revolution.*" 



Soon after the British evacuated Boston, the 

 Greenleaf apothecary shop in Boston was again sup- 

 plying medicines to the Continental Army. The 

 Greenleaf ledger " shows that on May 25 the shop 

 sold nearly £4 worth of "Sundry Medicines . . . 

 [to] the Committee of War. State of Massachusetts 

 Bav." Then, on June 20, the Massachusetts Assem- 

 bly resolved that "Dr. John Greenleaf of Boston be 

 requested to supply the Chief .Surgeon ol . . . 

 Colonels Marshall's, Whitnev's and Craft's Regi- 



3' Massachusttts Gazelle, September 7, 1775. 



31 American Archives, ser. 4, vol. 4, p. 159. 



5- Massachusells Gazette, February 22, 1776. 



33 Boston Gazette, April 15, 1776. 



3< Il>id., April 22, 1776. It is worth noting that Morgan did 

 not think this important enough to include in his Vindication 

 (see footnote 35). 



35 John Morgan, A I 'indication of His Public Character in the 

 Station of Director-General oj the Military Hospital, and Physician in 

 Chief oj the American Army: Anno, 1776, Boston, 1777. 



3fi Pennsylvania Packet, ]unf: 24, 1779. 



3^ American Archives, ser. 4, vol. 5, p. 488. 



3S Morgan, op. cit. (footnote 35), pp. 102, 144; and Independent 

 Chronicle, April 10, 1777. 



39 James Thacher, American .\trdicni Biography. Boston, 1828, 

 vol. 1, pp. 270-273. 



4" For biographies of .Sylvester Gardiner see Dictionaiy of 

 American Biography . New York, 1931, vol. 8, pp. 139-140; 

 .■ippleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New York, 1887, 

 vol. 2; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Dictionary of American 

 Medical Biography, New York, 1928, pp. 450-452; James H. 

 Stark, The Loyalists oj Massachusetts, Boston, 1910, pp. 313-315. 



" Greenleaf Ledger (see footnote 6). 



114 



BlUXETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



