66 
The  Story  of  a  Drug  Store. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
\    February,  1903. 
than  60  or  75  yards.  After  the  new  machine  was  built  and  installed 
in  the  warehouse,  the  spread  plaster  was  reeled  on  drums,  and  the 
spreading  ran  from  1,500  to  2,000  yards  at  one  time.  The  plaster 
itself  was  made  on  the  premises  and  pulled  as  candy  is,  to  make  it 
whiter. 
At  this  period  there  were  comparatively  few  patent  medicines — 
not  one  perhaps  where  there  are  100  to-day;  and  it  was  also  the 
habit  with  families  to  purchase  drugs  in  their  crude,  or  original 
state,  and  prepare  from  them  the  various  compounds  known  as 
domestic  remedies.  As  to  patent  medicines,  the  public,  especially 
the  rustic  community,  had  most  of  their  ailments  satisfied  with  a  lot 
of  old  English  things,  whose  proprietary  rights  had  run  out  or  some- 
how they  had  become  public  property,  and  they  apparently  covered 
the  ground.  If  any  one  of  you  think  the  modern  quack  audacious 
in  advertising  his  wares,  I  would  have  you  read  the  original  Eng- 
lish wrappers  that  came  with  all  these,  and  which  some  druggists 
adhered  to  ;  but  such  was  the  immense  sale,  that  our  College  deemed 
it  proper  to  edit  and  publish  for  the  trade  a  modest  statement  of 
what  was  claimed  as  compared  with  the  original,  for  each  remedy, 
and  also  gave  formulae  for  their  preparation.  Here  they  are  :  God- 
frey's Cordial,  Bateman's  Drops,  Dalby's  Carminative,  Harlem  Oil 
(a  vile  concoction) ;  and  so  large  was  the  sale  of  such  things  that  it 
constituted  the  greater  portion  of  the  business  of  many  of  the 
wholesale  druggists  of  the  30's  and  4o's,  and  their  apprentices  (as 
one  who  came  to  us  after  he  had  served  two  years  said)  knew  noth- 
ing else  than  putting  up  these,  supplemented  with  filling  vials  of 
laudanum,  castor  oil,  etc.  This  apprentice  became  afterwards  one 
of  our  very  prominent  citizens  in  all  reform  movements  and  died  in 
1902. 
In  1850,  Charles  Zeitler  left  us;  he  would  never  ride,  and  the 
long  walk  to  and  fro  was  trying,  with  all  his  work,  to  one  of  his 
advanced  years.  He  was  also  induced  to  manufacture  things  at  his 
home  by  one,  of  our  prominent  chemists,  and  the  last  time  I  saw 
him,  he  had  a  lot  of  open  furnaces  and  pans  in  a  shed  at  his  home 
on  Frankford  Road,  where  he  was  making  lactates.  He  died  many 
years  ago. 
Our  firm  then  obtained  a  lease  on  a  large  lot  at  Sixth  and  Morris 
Streets,  where  a  stone  building  was  erected,  to  which  all  the  appa- 
ratus of  the  Vidall  Court  was  moved,  supplemented  with  a  great 
