Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
July,  1920. i 
As  It  Was  in  i8yo. 
449 
The  popularly  prescribed  proprietaries  of  1870  were  evidently 
Chlorodyne,  and  Battley's  Sedative,  judging  from  the  papers  discuss- 
ing imitations  of  these  products.  In  those  days  as  always,  a  popular 
nostrum  by  imitation,  became  an  accepted  galenical,  even  though 
there  was  no  National  Formulary  in  which  to  place  it.  In  that  year 
appeared  Chandler's  classic  report  on  his  analysis  of  the  then  popular 
cosmetics. 
In  pure  science,  we  find  Wormley's  classic  paper  on  the  alkaloids 
of  gelsemium,  with  the  wonderfully  wrought  illustrations  of  his  wife, 
which  were  so  exquisitely  delicate  that  no  commercial  engraver  could 
do  them  justice  and  she  learned  the  art  of  engraving  in  order  to 
prepare  the  plates  herself;  H.  C.  Wood's  paper  on  the  therapeutics 
of  veratrum  alkaloids  and  lastly  an  address  given  by  William  Hope, 
before  the  British  Association  on  the  "new  germ  theory  of  disease." 
In  technical  science  many  things  now  considered  as  everyday 
matters,  subjects  in  which  millions  of  capital  are  now  invested,  were 
then  considered  as  new  and  in  their  experimental  stage.  Among 
these  undertakings  we  find  the  introduction  of  beet  sugar  culture  in 
the  United  States,  the  canning  of  meat,  "the  tinned  Willy"  of  A.  E. 
F.  memories;  safety  devices  in  the  petroleum  business,  notably  the 
fixing  of  the  "flash  point;"  the  manufacture  of  glucose  and  of  artificial 
ice;  the  development  of  natural  gas  wells  in  certain  sections  of  New 
York  and  at  Erie,  Pa. ;  the  production  of  oxygen  upon  a  commercial 
scale;  the  financially  successful  manufacture  of  aniline  dyes,  this 
being  the  topic  of  a  notable  paper  by  Perkin,  the  discoverer,  in  1856, 
of  mauvein,  the  first  coal-tar  dye  stuff ;  and  the  use  of  naphthalin  as 
a  moth  expeller. 
And  lastly,  in  the  domain  of  political  economy,  we  find  a  note 
that  presages  good  news  for  us  in  the  ''Sweet  Bye  and  Bye."  It  is 
stated  that  by  the  Law  of  July  14,  1870  the  Internal  Revenue  War 
Taxes  were  to  be  lightened ;  that  this  would  mean  that  the  American 
public  would  be  relieved  of  the  staggering  burden  of  $55,000,000  per 
annum. 
Such  is  the  record  of  1870,  a  record  upon  which  the  historian 
could  dilate  until  his  audience  was  asleep;  for  almost  every  topic 
cited  above  has  much  that  is  interesting  to  discuss.  Surveying  the 
work  of  1870,  one  wonders  whether  the  historian  of  1970  talking  about 
1920  will  be  able  to  find  as  much  that  has  stood  as  well  the  test  of 
half  a  century  as  have  many  of  the  new  things  of  1870.  The  year 
of  grace  1870  was  a  good  year  and  one  of  the  best  things  accom- 
