The Apothecary in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - Being an Account of his medical and chirurgical Services, - as well as of his trade Practices as a Chymist

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Title: The Apothecary in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - Being an Account of his medical and chirurgical Services, - as well as of his trade Practices as a Chymist
Author: Ford, Thomas K.
Language: English
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THE
APOTHECARY
in Eighteenth-Century
_WILLIAMSBURG_

Being an Account of his medical and chirurgical Services, as well as
of his trade Practices as a Chymist

_Williamsburg Craft Series_

_WILLIAMSBURG_
Published by _Colonial Williamsburg_
MCMXC

_The Apothecary
in Eighteenth-Century_ Williamsburg

[Illustration: Decorative capital]

Of the first 225 men sent over from London to settle at Jamestown in
1607 and 1608, seven were practitioners of medicine—as it was then
practiced: Walter Russell, Gent., was a “Doctour of Physicke,” which is
to say that he had studied at a university and earned a degree in
medicine; Thomas Wotton, Will Wilkinson, and Post Ginnat were listed as
surgeons—“chirurgeon” as it then appeared; Thomas Field and John Harford
bore the label of apothecaries; and the seventh was “Tho: Cowper the
Barber.”

Plainly, the Virginia Company of London, numbering several prominent
medical men among its backers, wanted its adventurers to the New World
to have the best of medical care. Unfortunately for about four of every
five settlers in the first few years at Jamestown, the best was not
enough to avert wholesale mortality from sickness, Indian arrows, and
“meere famine.” That some of the medical men shared the fate of their
patients seems likely in the absence of later information about most of
them.

Medical theories and practices at the beginning of the seventeenth
century were largely those that had prevailed since the time of Galen, a
Greek physician who died about two centuries after Christ. According to
Galen, the four elements of Aristotelian science—fire, water, air, and
earth—comprised the four major humors of the human body: blood, phlegm,
yellow bile, and black bile. Blood was held to be moist and warm, phlegm
was moist and cool, yellow bile dry and warm, and black bile dry and
cold.

Sickness, in the theory of Galen, was caused by one or more of these
humors becoming impure or out of place or out of balance. Treatment thus
consisted of removing or diminishing the offending humor by purging,
bleeding, vomiting, blistering, urinating, sweating, or salivating; on
the other hand, a deficient humor was to be restored by diet and drugs.
Galen classed drugs according to their warm, cold, moist, or dry
qualities. For instance, pepper was a heating drug, good for chills,
while cucumber was a cool one, to be given in case of fever.

Galenism had been subjected to attack in the sixteenth century by
Paracelsus and Vesalius, but its appeal was logical and remained strong
in seventeenth-century England. (In fact, some survivals can be found in
twentieth-century folk medicine.) Dr. Lawrence Bohun (or Boone), who
came over in 1610 and returned to England in 1611, spent some of the
year investigating medicinal sources in Virginia. He discovered a white
clay—and shipped some to England—that he claimed could absorb and expel
poisons from the body. Among vegetable remedies, Bohun experimented with
sassafras and found “_Galbanum mechoacon_, otherwise called _rubarbum
alum_, to be of service in cold moist bodies, for the purginge of fleame
[phlegm] and superfluous matter.”

_WHAT IS AN APOTHECARY?_

Already it will be evident that the practice of medicine in
seventeenth-century England, and hence in the first American colonies,
was not neatly confined to the licensed graduates of accredited medical
schools. Quite the contrary. In fact, Henry VIII had complained that all
kinds of ignorant people got into the act, including “Smiths, Weavers,
and Women.”

[Illustration: _In the upper half of this woodcut from _The Expert
Doctor’s Dispensary_, published in London in 1657, a learned
physician is shown conducting a urinalysis. He simply holds the
flask of liquid to the light for visual examination. Below, a
customer presents what appears to be a written prescription to be
filled by the apothecary._]

Two centuries of legal and parliamentary pulling and hauling, plus the
consequence of some natural developments, left the situation in England
somewhat stabilized—but not necessarily logical. The barbers, chartered
as a guild in 1462 and authorized to practice surgery, included both
barbers and surgeons in growing disharmony until they were formally
divorced in 1745.

The apothecaries—the word originally meant shopkeeper—joined the guild
of grocers at one time but shortly broke away to form their own guild in
1617. Meantime, the physicians, organized in the College of Physicians,
obtained the right to keep watch on the apothecaries.

Physicians, who had to have as much as 14 years training and four
degrees from Oxford or Cambridge, were naturally not abundant. Being
learned men, they would not stoop to the indignity of such menial work
as performing surgical operations or compounding medicines. The former
was the province of the surgeon or barber-surgeon, the latter was the
specialty of the apothecary.

But the scarcity of physicians, especially in rural areas, left a
medical gap that the apothecaries, trained through apprenticeship and
many times more numerous, naturally moved to fill. In 1727 English law
finally recognized and legalized the fact that for most people the
apothecary-surgeon was the only available practitioner of medicine. In
turn, the business of purveying drugs and compounding medicines passed
from the apothecaries to the wholesale druggists and pharmaceutical
chemists.

As it was transferred to America the trade of apothecary—it was neither
a craft nor a profession in any strict sense—was probably much like that
of the rural apothecary-surgeon of seventeenth-century England. The
apothecary still made his living primarily from the provision of drugs
and medical preparations; but he also performed amputations, dressed
wounds, and subjected his patients to the normal medical treatments of
the day.

_ALL THAT THE LAW ALLOWS_

Virginia was the only colony that tried to draw legislative boundaries
around the various aspects of medical practice. The effort came in 1736
in the form of “an Act for Regulating the Fees and Accounts of the
Practicers of Phisic.” On two grounds the act deserves to be quoted at
some length. For one thing, it throws a good light on the state of
medical practice at that time. For another, it affords undeniable
parallels to some current problems in the cost of medicines and medical
care, and to the role of government in serving the interests of the
“consumer.”

[Illustration: _An eighteenth-century operating chair, fully
equipped with tilting back, padded adjustable supports, and straps
to keep the patient from writhing away from the knife. Anesthesia
was limited to strong doses of spirituous liquors; antisepsis was
unknown. The illustration is taken from Denis Diderot’s famous
encyclopedia of arts and sciences._]

The first section of the act recited certain abuses, especially of the
surgeons and apothecaries:

I. Whereas the practice of phisic in this colony, is most commonly
taken up and followed, by surgeons, apothecaries, or such as have only
served apprenticeships to those trades, who often prove very unskilful
in the art of a phisician; and yet do demand excessive fees, and exact
unreasonable prices for the medicines which they administer, and do
too often, for the sake of making up long and expensive bills, load
their patients with greater quantities thereof, than are necessary or
useful, concealing all their compositions, as well to prevent the
discovery of their practice, as of the true value of what they
administer: which is become a grievance, dangerous and intolerable, as
well to the poorer sort of people as others, & doth require the most
effectual remedy that the nature of the thing will admit.

The second section then proceeded to emphasize the chief distinction
between the apprentice-trained apothecary-surgeons and the
university-educated physicians by allowing the latter to charge twice as
much for their services as the former could. If the apothecaries and
surgeons felt—as well they might have—that the difference in fees was an
insult to them, it did not last long. The law was not renewed at the
following session of the Assembly; perhaps its backers, the physicians,
had seen their patients flock to the lower-priced practicers.

Although Virginia was the only colony to set medical fees by law, the
practice of legislative price fixing in other areas of the economy was
as common in colonial America as it was in England. In Virginia, to be
specific, not only prices and quantities but in some cases even
qualities of goods and services offered to the public by tavernkeepers,
shoemakers, millers, and ferrymen were regulated by law. The economic
philosophy and terminology of _laissez faire_ were among the alien isms
imported after 1776. During the colonial years, government rarely
hesitated to act in the economic field where the need was felt.

From this particular Virginia law of 1736 it would appear that some if
not all medical charges had gotten well out of line—the correct line, of
course, being what the people and their elected representatives thought
was reasonable:

II. BE it therefore enacted, ...

That from and after the passing of this act, no practicer in phisic,
in any action or suit whatsoever, hereafter to be commenced in any
court of record in this colony, shall recover, for visiting any sick
person, more than the rates hereafter mentioned: that is to say,

Surgeons and apothecaries, who have served an apprenticeship to those
trades, shall be allowed,

£ s d
For every visit, and prescription, in town, or within 00 5 00
five miles
For every mile, above five, and under ten 00 1 00
For a visit, of ten miles 00 10 00
And for every mile, above ten 00 00 06
With an allowance for all ferriages in their journeys.
To Surgeons, For a simple fracture, and the cure thereof 02 00 00
For a compound fracture, and the cure thereof 04 00 00

But those persons who have studied phisic in any university, and taken
any degree therein, shall be allowed,

For every visit, and prescription, in any town, or within 00 10 00
five miles
If above five miles, for every mile more, under ten 00 1 00
For a visit, if not above ten miles 1 00 00
And for every mile, above ten 00 1 00
With an allowance of ferriages, as before.

Lest it appear that all Williamsburg “practicers” made a habit of
charging excessive fees, the generous treatment an earlier doctor gave
at least one of his patients must be set down. George Hume, a Scottish
merchant who came to Virginia about 1722 and soon caught all the
prevalent ills, found the place “only good for doctors and ministers who
have very good encouragem’nt here.” One of the “common distempers” that
afflicted Hume was dysentery, then called the flux. He was laid so low
that Dr. John Brown all but despaired of his life. Hume’s gratitude for
being cured was doubtless enhanced by the fact—carefully reported to his
Scottish relatives—that “ye Dr. took nothing for my druggs.”

The third section of the act, specifying exactly what the “practicer of
phisic” should set forth in his bill, bears if least a faint augury of
modern food-and-drug labeling legislation:

III. And to the end the true value of the medicines administered by
any practicer in phisic, may be better known, and judged of, _Be it
further enacted, by the authority aforesaid_, That whenever any pills,
bolus, portion, draught, electuary, decoction, or any medicines, in
any form whatsoever, shall be administered to any sick person, the
person administering the same shall, at the same time, deliver in his
bill, expressing every particular thing made up therein; or if the
medicine administered, be a simple, or compound, directed in the
_dispensatories_, the true name thereof shall be expressed in the same
bill, together with the quantities and prices, in both cases. And in
failure thereof, such practicer, or any apothecary, making up the
prescription of another, shall be nonsuited, in any action or suit
hereafter commenced, which shall be grounded upon such bill or bills:
Nor shall any book, or account, of any practicer in phisic, or any
apothecary, be permitted to be given in evidence, before a court;
unless the articles therein contained, be charged according to the
directions of this act.

This final section reveals that some differentiation between the
branches of the medical profession had already begun in America. The
tip-off is the phrase that imposes on “any apothecary making up the
prescription of another” the same requirements as on physicians who make
up their own prescriptions.

_THE DOCTORS OF WILLIAMSBURG_

If competition tends to keep prices low, fees charged in and around the
capital city in the early eighteenth century should have been at the
rock bottom level. Governor Gooch in 1729 reported to London that
Williamsburg abounded in physicians. The same year young Adam Cunningham
gave up his brief effort to establish himself in practice as a doctor:

[Illustration: _Another illustration from the Diderot encyclopedia
shows the operation of trepanning a skull and some surgical tools in
common use in the eighteenth century, in colonial America as well as
in Europe._]

Williamsburg [he wrote] is but a small Village containing not more
than 60 families, at most; and in and about this City are no less than
25 or 30 phisitians, and of that number not above 2 capable of living
handsomly. So that I did not think it proper to stay, in a place where
so many of my profession are lickely to starve.

Little is known about any of these “phisitians,” not even the names of
most. It seems fairly sure, however, that a number were quacks. Gooch
had complained in the same letter about the “unskilfulness of
practioners in this country” but was gullible enough himself to pay 60
pounds from public funds and give freedom to a Negro slave for the
secret of the latter’s alleged cure of venereal diseases. It turned out
to be a decoction of roots and barks, which the Governor avowed to be “a
certain Remedy here” and sent samples so the College of Physicians could
try its effect in England.

Most of Gooch’s abundant physicians almost certainly made up their own
prescriptions. From 1622 at Jamestown until 1731 in Williamsburg no
mention of an apothecary in Virginia has been found in historical
records. In the latter year, however, there were four shops purveying
drugs and compounding medicines in Williamsburg. The proprietors of two
were doctors—Dr. George Gilmer and Dr. Kenneth McKenzie; the other two
were druggists or “chymists”—Thomas Wharton and Thomas Goodwin.

Goodwin did not remain independent long. After about two years he joined
Dr. Robert Davidson, mayor of Williamsburg, in a partnership that was
itself dissolved in two years by the death of Dr. Davidson. Thomas
Wharton, on the other hand, kept shop in Williamsburg for some eleven
years. He had arrived in Virginia about 1703 as an indentured servant to
a Dr. Richard Wright and had acquired by the time of his death in 1746
not only a pharmaceutical business, but the title of “Doctor.” He willed
his drugs, medicines, and shop utensils to Dr. McKenzie.

_SHOPKEEPER EXTRAORDINARY_

The fourth named practicer, George Gilmer, Sr., deserves extended
attention. He comes as close as any one person to being a typical
Williamsburg apothecary-surgeon-physician of his time, though his
extramedical career was far from typical.

Born in Edinburgh in 1700, Gilmer studied medicine there, then practiced
with one of London’s leading doctors, whose daughter he married.
Possibly the death of his young wife moved him to ship for America; at
the age of 31 he arrived in Virginia to practice medicine and manage the
affairs of a land company. He married again and must have prospered,
because in four years’ time he was able to purchase for £155 three
choice lots near the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg.

These three lots, on which the rambling St. George Tucker House has
stood since 1788, were described in 1735 as “the Lotts and Land whereon
the Bowling Green formerly was, the Dwelling House and Kitchen of
William Levingston and the House call’d the Play House.” The last, of
course, was the first theater in the English colonies, and Gilmer later
sold it to the mayor and aldermen of Williamsburg to be used as a city
hall and courthouse. It was a particularly convenient arrangement for
one of the aldermen who was to become mayor himself a year later, none
other than Dr. George Gilmer.

Gilmer’s career as an apothecary-surgeon-physician was not without its
ups and downs. Soon after buying the property on Palace Green, he was
giving away samples of rattlesnake root on behalf of Dr. John Tennent,
who maintained it would cure pleurisy, the gout, rheumatism, and mad-dog
bites.

At the same time the _Virginia Gazette_, Williamsburg’s new weekly,
carried the news that “on _Monday_ Morning last, dy’d, at Mr. _Geo.
Gilmer’s_, in this City, Mrs. _Susanna Skaife_, ... and was decently
interr’d on _Wensday_. And, on _Thursday_ Morning also dy’d, the Rev.
Mr. _John Skaife_, her Husband, after a tedious Indisposition.” It would
appear that at least Mrs. Skaife was a bed patient in Dr. Gilmer’s home;
this was a usual way of caring for serious illnesses before the day of
hospitals.

[Illustration: _Surrounded by the equipment of his craft, this young
apothecary is making up a prescription of some kind, probably for
pills. The illustration traces back to a London publication, _The
Book of Trades or Library of Useful Arts_, first American edition
published in 1807 by J. Johnson and for sale in his bookstore in
Philadelphia and in Richmond, Virginia._]

Soon thereafter, Gilmer found it necessary to insert the following
advertisement in the _Virginia Gazette_:

Williamsburg _May_ 26, 1737.

_There being a Report industriously spread about the Country, of
_George Gilmer’s_ Death, by some well-meaning People, and of his being
so much in Debt, that nothing from _England_ would be sent him this
Year, _if alive_._

_To obviate such scandalous and groundless _Reports_, I take this
Opportunity to acquaint all my Friends, that I can now, better than
ever, supply them with all manner of Chymical and Galenical Medicines,
truly and faithfully prepared, and at as cheap Rates as can be had
from _England_. Also Double-refin’d, Single refin’d, and Lump Sugars,
Cinnamon, Cloves, Mace, Nutmegs, _Bateman’s_ Drops, _Squire’s_ Elixir,
_Anderson’s_ Pills, Sweet Oil, _&c._ at reasonable Rates; at my Old
Shop, near the _Governor’s_._

George Gilmer

Nine years later Gilmer was so much alive and active as to be mayor of
the city, the owner of a new four-wheeled chaise, and once more a
bridegroom. On the death of his second wife, Gilmer had promptly married
his next-door neighbor. The third Mrs. Gilmer was Harrison Blair,
daughter of Dr. Archibald Blair and sister of the Hon. John Blair of the
governor’s council. The apothecary’s star was rising.

He was still, of course, a shopkeeper. His “Old Shop near the
Governor’s” stood at the very edge of Palace Green, a frame building of
about 20 feet square. Every year or so he advertised the arrival from
England of a shipment of drugs, medicines, spices, and groceries—to be
sold at the shop, wholesale or retail, and at reasonable rates.

Archaeological excavations on the site of the first theater, and
extending north of it onto the adjacent Brush-Everard House property,
yielded quantities of Dr. Gilmer’s domestic and pharmaceutical rubbish.
The latter included delftware ointment pots and drug jars, glass
medicine phials and fragments of carboys, bottles for Pyrmont mineral
water, a brass pestle, and, inexplicably, a human jaw. Just how, or if,
that related to Gilmer’s shop remains open to conjecture, but it is
evident from the quantity of pharmaceutical artifacts recovered that Dr.
Gilmer’s business was as extensive as his 1737 advertisement claimed.

Indeed, Gilmer was no ordinary shopkeeper. His social status—doubtless
bolstered by that of his wife’s family—was great enough that he could be
among the first to entertain the newly appointed Governor Dinwiddie. One
suspects that either the ambitious Dr. Gilmer or his well-born wife
decided that his house on Palace Street fell short of such prestigious
demands. Six months after the dinner for Dinwiddie, the apothecary was
having his dining room wainscoted, with a marble fireplace, a mirror
over the mantel, and a cabinet to contain the set of new china his wife
had ordered from London.

About the same time Dr. Gilmer, who gave himself perhaps facetiously the
title of “colonel,” became part owner of the Raleigh Tavern. The deed by
which he and Colonel Chiswell bought the famous inn for £700 testified
that he had gained that ultimate accolade of social and economic status
in colonial Virginia, the designation “Geo Gilmer Gent.”

In the letters he wrote to London, Gilmer seems to refer to himself not
as a doctor or surgeon, but as an apothecary, and his name in public
documents as well as in private records most often appears not as Dr.
Gilmer but as Mr. Gilmer. He was doubtless prouder of being known as a
gentleman and a colonel; the title of doctor was often held in poor
esteem. William Byrd II wrote in 1706 that “here be some men indeed that
are call’d Doctors: but they are generally discarded Surgeons of Ships,
that know nothing above the very common Remedys.” As late as 1783 Dr.
Johann Schoepf, writing of his travels through the former colonies,
asserted that “in America every man who drives the curing trade is known
without distinction as Doctor, as elsewhere every person who makes
verses is a poet—so there are both black doctors and brown, and quacks
in abundance.”

_THE EDUCATION OF AN APOTHECARY_

Apprenticeship was the usual form of training for all colonial
occupations, with the possible exception of the ministry at one end of
the scale and ordinary farming at the other. Medicine was not an
exception; practitioners normally took apprentices for the same reasons
that cabinetmakers or blacksmiths did. The beginning apprentice
performed the unskilled and some of the semiskilled duties of the
establishment, learning as he did so. As he acquired knowledge, he could
give the doctor more and more assistance in his practice.

The doctor generally undertook, if there was a formal indenture, to
teach the apprentice the “art and mystery of physic, surgery, and
pharmacy,” or words to that effect. Sometimes, however, he agreed to
teach only the art of the apothecary. In either event, the apprentice
was taught to compound medicines as directed by his master, to search
the woods for medicinal plants, and probably to keep books and collect
fees. Even an apprentice apothecary might in time be called on to
assist—or perhaps even take over—such routine treatments as bleeding.
Most likely he also had to spend his evenings reading whatever medical
or pharmaceutical works the doctor had on hand—from Hippocrates to the
latest edition of the _Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia_.

On completing this apprenticeship—which in most cases probably fell
short of the English norm of seven years—the young man could set up in
the “curing trade”, for himself, with no more credentials than his
master’s certificate to the effect that he had served a certain term and
had studied certain books. Or he could go to Edinburgh or London for
further study at a university or in a hospital.

[Illustration: _Another plate from Diderot’s encyclopedia shows a
variety of instruments used by eighteenth-century
apothecary-surgeons. Notice the box-like device with 16 small knives
that can be pressed against the skin and triggered to make
simultaneous incisions for bleeding a patient. One of these gadgets
can be seen at the Apothecary Shop in Williamsburg._]

In any event, there was no requirement that a dealer in drugs or a
practicer of medicine must have a degree, a license, or any other
recommendation than his own assurance of good results to the sick who
applied to him. Some practitioners were on the modest side in offering
their services; some were wholly unrestrained—even guaranteeing to cure
cancer! The contrast stands out sharply in these two advertisements from
the _Virginia Gazette_, the first in 1771 by Dr. William Stark of the
town of Blandford, the second five years later by a quack who did not
even bother to give himself the title of doctor.

The Subscriber having been bred to Physick in his younger Years, and
having attended particularly to this Study for these three Years past,
now proposes to practise on the most moderate Terms. He cannot with
Sincerity boast of having attained the _Ne plus ultra_ of the
_Aesculapian_ Art, nor yet of acquiring any superior Degree of
Knowledge in this Science; but flatters himself that, by a vigilant
and due Attention to the Indications and Efforts of Nature in those
sick Persons who should, through Choice or Necessity, be committed to
his Care, he may be able to afford them proper and timely Assistance.

* * *

Thomas Johnson, of Brunswick, Who is well known for his Abilities in
the Cure of the Flux, gives Notice that he also cures the following
Disorders, _viz._ the Spleen, Cholic, Asthma, and any Kind of Fevers,
lingering Disorders, bad Coughs, Scurvy, any Kind of running Humours
or scorbutic Disorders, the Yaws and _French_ Disorder, without
Salivation, sore Legs, Dropsy, Scurvy in the Gums, and has the
greatest Reason to believe he can cure the Consumption if timely
applied to.

_LINES OF SUCCESSION_

In a very direct and personal way, each generation of Williamsburg
physician-apothecary trained its successor. Two particularly
illustrative lines began with Dr. George Gilmer.

At one time in 1745 it appears that Gilmer had an apprentice by the name
of James Carter. A few years later Carter opened an apothecary shop of
his own at the sign of the Unicorn’s Horn, next door to the Raleigh
Tavern in Williamsburg. Carter in turn took Andrew Anderson as
apprentice, and in due time when Anderson had attain the status of
“doctor,” took him into partnership. This combination lasted only two
years, and James Carter later formed a partnership with his brother
William, a physician. After another few years James sold his share of
the apothecary shop to William but apparently continued independently to
practice medicine until his death in 1794.

Gilmer, of course, had long since taken another apprentice in young
James Carter’s place. Billy Pasteur was the son of the barber and
wigmaker, who could not afford to send his son abroad for medical study.
But at the end of his apprenticeship, Pasteur did go to London with the
help of Dr. Gilmer for a year’s study at St. Thomas’s Hospital. He
returned to Williamsburg and opened shop just after his benefactor’s
death. It would seem probable that he took over Gilmer’s shop before
building his own, though the record does not say.

Pasteur, in his own turn, had at least two apprentices who later
practiced in Williamsburg. The second, Robert Nicolson, shortly moved
his apothecary shop and medical practice to Yorktown, thereby taking
himself out of this narrative. His predecessor, John Minson Galt,
remained in Williamsburg and in the medical profession until 1808. Like
Dr. Gilmer, who educated his own son, George Gilmer, Jr., in medicine,
John Minson Galt launched two of his sons into medicine via
apprenticeship.

A son of Samuel Galt, the silversmith, John Minson Galt was apprenticed
at the age of 14 to William Pasteur, who himself had just set up shop
and was only half a dozen years older. The apprenticeship appears to
have lasted a full term of seven years. It was followed by two years of
medicine in London. There the young man studied the theory and practice
of physic under Dr. Hugh Smith, midwifery under Dr. Colin McKenzie, and
surgery, anatomy, and operations at St. Thomas’s Hospital. Galt is also
said to have attended the College of William and Mary—presumably before
going abroad—and to have pursued his medical studies in Edinburgh and
Paris as well as in London. All of this made John Minson Galt
undoubtedly the best educated apothecary-surgeon of eighteenth-century
Williamsburg.

On his return to Williamsburg in 1769 he bought “a box of Surgeon’s
Instruments,” married Judith Craig, and announced his intention to open
shop at “the Brick House, opposite the Coffee House when he gets his
utensils fixed.” The _Virginia Gazette_’s notice of the marriage was
short and full of confident optimism:

This evening Doctor JOHN MINSON GALT, of this city, was married to
Miss JUDITH CRAIG, eldest daughter of Mr. ALEXANDER CRAIG. The mutual
affection and familiarity of disposition in this agreeable pair,
afford the strongest assurance of their enjoying the highest felicity
in the nuptial state.

In setting up shop as an apothecary-surgeon in Williamsburg, Galt was
not exactly filling a vacuum. In fact, the same issue of the _Gazette_
in which he announced himself carried long advertisements by two other
apothecaries. One was Galt’s former master and benefactor, William
Pasteur; the other was “Andrew Anderson, Surgeon and Man-Midwife,” also
just launching in practice. Altogether the ads occupy a little over one
whole column of the paper, and each consists almost solely of a list of
the items available at that shop.

It is interesting to notice that William Pasteur had imported a new
supply of goods in the same ship with Galt’s “compleat assortment,” and
just in time:

The subscriber having had but very few medicines left in his shop
before this order came to hand, will now be able to furnish his
friends and customers with every thing fresh and genuine. Gentlemen
practitioners, and others, may depend on being supplied at a very low
advance.

The final assurance echoes Pasteur’s earlier complaint written his
London agents to the effect that “tiss hardly worth our while to import
medicines for sale we are Oblige to sell at a low advance on acc^t of
our confounded druggist here....” The “confounded druggist,” William
Biers, was having his own difficulties making a living, however, and
soon sold out to the partnership of James Carter and Andrew Anderson.

Colonial Williamsburg owns several of Dr. Galt’s account books,
including the one for the years 1770 to 1775, before he joined Pasteur.
One of the early entries shows a charge against Thomas Glass of ten
shillings for “visiting &c.” The corresponding credit entry shows that
the bill was paid in cash seven years and five months later! Patients
were as lax about paying their doctor’s bills then as now, and although
most of Dr. Galt’s patients paid in cash, he also took wood, hay, and
oats. On one instance he wrote off a debt with an equal credit “for the
Runaway.”

What is surely the most provocative entry occurs opposite February 29,
1772, a Leap Year Day. On that date appears a debit against a Mr. Bowyer
of 10 shillings for “attend^ce in the night.” On the credit side are
these words in Galt’s hand: “Twas sewed on by a Girl who I shou’d be
happy with.” Does this mean that in three short years the “mutual
affection and familiarity of disposition” of John and Judith had worn
away? The account book does not answer.

Notice that Galt’s charge of 10 shillings for visiting a patient was the
very sum permitted by law in 1736—three and a half decades earlier. For
amputating Mr. Parson’s finger and dressing it he charged £3 4_s_ 6_d_,
and the same amount to Mr. Cardwell for “laying open Child’s leg &c.”

There is but a single entry for bleeding, and in this case the patient
was a Negro. Dr. Galt, unlike most of his colleagues, seems not to have
favored phlebotomy. The great number of entries simply mention visiting,
attendance, or advice, with prescriptions by the score of cathartics,
emetics, purges, etc.

_PASTEUR & GALT_

It must have been a source of gratification to John Minson Galt when the
well-established Pasteur invited the younger man to become his partner.
The announcement of the new firm read as follows:

WILLIAMSBURG, _April_ 15, 1775.

THE Subscribers having this Day entered into Partnership, beg Leave to
acquaint the Public in general, and their Friends and Neighbours in
particular, that they intend practicing Physic and Surgery to their
fullest Extent; and that they intend also, as soon as the Situation of
the Times will admit, to keep full and complete Assortments of Drugs
and Medicines, which they will endeavour to procure of the very best
in Quality, and will take Care to have them fresh by making several
Importations in the Year. It is proposed that _John M. Galt_ shall pay
his particular Attention to Surgery, to whom our Friends are desired
to apply on all such occasions, but will be advised and assisted by
_W. Pasteur_ in all difficult Cases. They both desire to make their
most grateful Acknowledgments to their Friends and Customers for the
many Favours and Civilities they have received, and hope, by this
Union, they will be enabled to carry on their Business to the entire
Satisfaction of their Friends; as, on their Part, the strictest
Assiduity and Attention shall be observed.

PASTEUR & GALT

Only a few days after this announcement appeared, the spark of
revolution flared out in both Lexington, Massachusetts, and
Williamsburg, Virginia. As it happened, Dr. Pasteur was to play a minor
role and a momentary one on the Williamsburg stage. Governor Dunmore’s
surreptitious removal of the colony’s gunpowder from the Magazine was
detected and there was an immediate reaction from the populace, some
under arms. Attending a patient in the Palace, Dr. Pasteur was twice
accosted by the Governor and made the bearer of angry messages to the
Speaker of the House of Burgesses and “the Gentlemen of the Town.”
Should he be attacked, His Lordship blustered, “he would declare freedom
to the slaves & reduce the city of Williamsburg to ashes.”

What actually followed was that Dunmore and his family fled the Palace,
never to return, and Pasteur became the next mayor of Williamsburg. It
should be mentioned that he and John Minson Galt were already members of
the Committee of Safety for the city when they formed their partnership.
The sympathies of both were clearly on the patriot side.

The partners very shortly were able to advertise the importation of the
usual wide assortment of drugs and medicines for sale in their shop on
Duke of Gloucester Street. And a few surviving bills indicate that they
did not lack for medical and surgical business. Dr. Pasteur, it would
seem, did not share his younger colleague’s aversion to phlebotomy, as
the following excerpt from a Pasteur & Galt bill to Henry Morse Esq. in
1775 shows:

April 14 To bleeding Vomit & Chamomile Flowers . . 7 . . 6
21 To Brimstone & Antimony . . 1 . . 3
22 To Purge Honey & Barley . . 4 . .
25 To Purge 2/6. 26 Sugar Candy 1/3 . . 3 . . 9
29 To bleeding & Pectoral Mixture . . 8 . . 6
30 To Visiting Mixture & Sago . . 9 . . 9
May 4 To Pectoral Mixture . . 6 . . 6
11 To 1 lb Balsam Honey . . 6 . . 3
19 To 1 lb D_o_. 6/3 25 Honey 1/0
31_st_ Cons. Roses 2/ . . 9 . . 3
June 1 To 1 lb Balsam Honey . . 6 . . 3
6 To Lenitive Electary & Salope . . 3 . . 6
15 To Castor Oil & Honey . . 6 . .
16 To Febrifuge & Bitter Decoctions . .12 . .
22 To Attend_ce_ & Bleedg in the Night . .10 . .
23 To Honey & Oxymel Squills . . 2 . . 6
July 10 To Honey 1/ 10_th_ Capillaire & Sago 5/6 . . 6 . . 6
August 20 To Vomit & Chamomile Flowers . . 2 . . 6
21 To Febrifuge Decoction repeated . .10 . .
L 5. 16 . 6

The partnership lasted only three years, for reasons not now
discernable, and William Pasteur gave notice to the public that “I
purpose commencing oyster merchant” at his landing on King’s Creek
between Williamsburg and Yorktown. Galt, on the other hand, continued to
practice medicine, serving as a senior surgeon to the Continental
military hospital in Williamsburg, joining in partnership with Dr.
Philip Barraud, and becoming visiting physician to the public hospital
for the insane and a member of its board of directors. He held both
offices until his death in 1808. Yet as late as 1794 he was identified
in court records as “Apothecary, of the City of Williamsburg.”

_THE APOTHECARY SHOP_

The Pasteur-Galt apothecary shop on Duke of Gloucester Street in
Williamsburg is a reconstruction. Its size and location are determined
with certainty not only from an eighteenth-century town map, but also by
eighteenth-century foundations excavated on the site. The land was owned
by Dr. William Pasteur from 1760 until 1778, during which time he
probably built the shop. When he and John Minson Galt dissolved their
partnership, he sold the property to Galt, who transferred it to his son
at the end of the century.

No record survives as to the exact appearance, outside or inside, of the
Pasteur-Galt shop. Some apothecary shops apparently had as many as three
rooms: the front shop, the doctor’s office and operating room, and
possibly a sort of laboratory where the apprentice compounded medicines.

The Pasteur-Galt shop has been reconstructed with two, the preparative
work being done in full view of the public.

As to the content of the shop, ample evidence comes from almost any
advertisement of Galt, Pasteur, or for that matter of just about any
apothecary in colonial America at any time during the eighteenth
century. They all published for their prospective customers lengthy
lists of items just imported, and the lists bear a marked resemblance
from place to place and from time to time.

[Illustration: Apothecary’s advertisement]

WILLIAMSBURG, _August_ 31, 1769.
_Just imported in the_ Experiment,
_Capt._ Hamlin,

A FRESH and compleat assortment of DRUGS and MEDICINES, chymical and
galenical, which will be SOLD at very low advance for READY CASH, and
are as follows:

Crude antimony, æther, verdigrease, Barbados, hepatick, and succotrine
aloes, common and rock alum, ambergrise, compound waters of all kinds,
quicksilver, balsams of capri, Peru, amber, and Tolu, Canadian balsam,
Armenian bole, borax, calomel crude and prepared, comphor, camella
alba, cantharides, cloves, Indian pink, greatly celebrated for
destroying worms in children, Russian and Hudson’s Bay castors, common
and lunar caustick, cinnabar of antimony, native and fictitious
cinnabar, potash, cochineal, colcothar, vitriol, colocynth, confectio
cardiaca, conserves of hips, sloes, and sorrel roses, wormwood and
orange peel, Jesuits bark, cinnamon, cascarilla, cremor tartar,
English and Spanish saffron, claterium, plaisters and electuaries of
all kinds, essence of lemons, burgamot and ambergrease, single and
double camomile flowers, flower of brimstone, balaustines, fenna,
galls, grains of paradise, gums of all kinds, pearl barley, isinglass,
Irish slate, litharge, common and flakey manna, sweet mercury,
calcined mercury, corrosive sublimate, red precipitate, musk, chymical
oils, opium, long pepper, ipecacuanha, jalap, gentian, licorice,
contrayerva, calamus aromaticus, china and sarsaparilla, best Turkey
and India rhubarb, valerian, sago, alkaline, neutral, and volatile
salts, saloop, seeds of anise, carraway, coriander, wild carrot,
fennel and fennugreek, lesser cardamoms, staves acre, spermaceti,
spirits of hartshorn, lavender, sal volatile, and sal ammoniac, nitre,
mineral acids, dulcified spirits of salt, vitriol, and sal ammoniac,
Spanish licorice, tartar emetic, vermacelli, white, blue, and green
vitriols, extract of hemlock, glass of antimony, meadow, saffron, and
mezereon roots, common and Nesbitt’s clyster pipes, gold and silver
leaf, Dutch metal, gallipots and vials, Anderson’s, Hooper’s, and
Lockyer’s pills, Turlington’s balsam, Hill’s pectoral balsam of honey,
Bateman’s drops, Squire’s, Daffy’s, and Bostock’s elixirs, Freeman’s
and Godfrey’s cordials British oil, eau de luce, Dr. James’s fever
powder, court plaister, best lavender and Hungary water, &c. &c.

The subscriber intends opening shop at the BRICK HOUSE, opposite the
Coffee-House, when he gets his utensils fixed, which will be in a
fortnight at farthest; and as this is his first importation, every
thing may be depended upon as entirely fresh, and bought of one of the
best hands in _London_. Those who please to favour him with their
orders, may depend on having them immediately dispatched, and every
thing put up in the best manner, by

Their most obedient humble servant,
JOHN MINSON GALT.

An apt example is the advertisement placed in the Virginia Gazette of
September 21, 1769, by John Minson Galt at the outset of his long career
(preceding page).

[Illustration: Turlington’s Balsam of Life _bottles as pictured in a
brochure dated 1755-1757, preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical
Society, Philadelphia, Pa. According to Turlington, the bottle was
adopted in 1754 “to prevent the villainy of some persons who, buying
up my empty bottles, have basely and wickedly put therein a vile
spurious counterfeit sort.”_]

LONDON
By The Kings Royall Patent Granted to

JANU^Y 26 1754
Rob.^t Turlington For His Invented Balsam of Life

Analysis of the Galt or any other advertisement of the time shows that
the contents of a colonial apothecary shop fell into five categories:
plant materials, animal extracts, metals and metallic derivatives,
medical equipment, and prepared elixirs, pills, and the like.

Among the most popular of the prepared medicines—judging from the many
advertisements of Dr. John Minson Galt in the years 1772-1774—were Dr.
Keyser’s celebrated anti-venereal pills. These were backed by
testimonials of two English and three French dukes, and Galt published
lengthy accounts avowing that “the Patient is most effectually cured
without any Inconvenience to himself, or being exposed to the Shame and
Confusion of his Disaster being known to the nicest Observer.”

Not only were they supposed to cure syphilis, but “the happy effects of
_Keyser’s_ pills have often been proved in white Swellings, asthmas,
Suppressions of the Urine, in the Palsy, Apoplexies, Sciaticks, in the
Green Sickness, and more especially in the Yaws.”

“Mrs. Rednapp’s red fit drops” were among Dr. Pasteur’s favorite patent
medicines, and Daffy’s, Stoughton’s, and Bateman’s elixirs or drops were
distributed not only by most colonial apothecaries but also by the
keepers of general stores, ship captains, and others. In 1771 no fewer
than nineteen packaged English medicines were offered for sale at the
Post Office in Williamsburg!

The formulas for some of these, consisting of twenty or more separate
ingredients, were printed in the principal pharmacopoeias and were
commonly made up by doctors and apothecaries for their own use and for
sale. Dr. Pasteur and Dr. James Carter both ordered quantities of empty
bottles for Stoughton’s and Daffy’s compounds.

Dependence on imported patent medicines was a development that several
observers deplored. Dr. Schoepf, for instance, thought American
physicians should patriotically discontinue “making use almost wholly of
foreign medicines, with which in large measure they might easily
dispense, if they were willing to give their attention to home-products,
informing themselves more exactly of the properties and uses of the
stock of domestic medicines already known.”

Jefferson in his _Notes on the State of Virginia_ had listed twenty-one
medicinal plants native to the state, and others before him had
commented on the abundance of simple remedies afforded by the woods and
marshes of tidewater Virginia. Indeed, it appears that colonial medical
men in the seventeenth century had gathered the largest part of their
own medicines close at hand, and that the growing importation of patent
mixtures was matched by an increasing export of native drugs.

By the middle of the eighteenth century considerable quantities of at
least eight medicinal plants were being shipped to England from
Virginia, among them ipecacuanha, sassafras, balsam of Tolu, ginseng,
and snakeroot. The last two formed the bulk of the export; of them more
in a moment.

[Illustration: _Seneca rattlesnake root or _Polygala Virginiana_ was
a mainstay of medical treatment in eighteenth-century Virginia. The
original source of this drawing has not been identified._]

However, if there were in colonial towns “some apothecaries shops
wainscotted or papered with advertisements, recommending quack
medicines,” a large number of rural practitioners preferred to make up
their remedies. “I do not apply to the Apothecaries Shops for my Means,”
said the advertisement of one such, “I compact my own medicines myself.
The produce of _Virginia_ Earth, with a few trifles besides, supports my
Body, ... and many others besides, without bleeding, sweating,
physicking, or Bitters.”

Whether used from conviction that such means were better, or because the
imported medicines were too expensive, the result was the same: such
mild cures were less likely to interfere with the healing course of
nature than did the complex, often drastic, and sometimes revolting
compounds of the leading English physicians.

From inventories of the estates of deceased apothecaries as well as from
their newspaper advertisements comes evidence as to the equipment they
kept and used in their shops. The remarkable thing is to see how little
the essential items have changed over the course of the centuries—alike
before and since the colonial era.

The mortar and pestle, traditional symbol of the apothecary’s calling
and often used as the sign of his shop, was to be found in Williamsburg
shops in many sizes and materials. The largest recorded was a bell-metal
mortar and iron pestle belonging to Dr. Thomas Wharton and weighing 168
pounds. Wharton also owned a large marble mortar and pestle, two small
ones of marble, and a “Porphrey Stone & Muller.” Later in the century,
as the medical profession learned that toxic quantities of metal dust
could come from the use of metal mortars, ceramic and glass became
widely used.

Glass and ceramic containers by the hundreds were also used to store
simple ingredients and compounds for sale. Dr. Pasteur at one time, for
instance, ordered 246 white glass vials ranging in capacity from two
drams to twelve ounces. Dr. Alexander Middleton, whose tory sympathies
cost him his Williamsburg shop and contents during the Revolution,
listed more than fifty dozen bottles, from one ounce size to two
gallons, along with dozens of pill pots, ointment pots, and syrup pots.
Glass seems to have been the most common type of container, with
earthenware “gallipots” probably second.

Among the articles with which the Williamsburg shop is furnished are a
number that belonged to the first Dr. Galt that have been obtained from
his descendants or generously loaned by them to Colonial Williamsburg.
The largest is the secretary-bookcase that stands in the back office,
the most numerous are the scores of glass bottles and cardboard
pillboxes that cluster on one section of the shelves, and perhaps the
most interesting are his diplomas in anatomy, surgery, and midwifery
that hang on the wall. Vying with the last name is the account book
displaying a charge of 7 shillings against Patrick Henry—but no entry to
show that the bill was ever paid.

It would require more space than is here available to describe, or even
to list, all the articles in the shop today, and to identify all the
drugs, herbs, powders, and compounds that would have been contained in
the numerous bottles, jars, boxes, and drawers of the shop. The quantity
and variety, however, may be taken as typical of a well provided
apothecary shop of colonial America.

One should note in particular the surgical instruments in their
velvet-lined cases. These have been collected from various
sources—including one case of lancets and a set of scales from the Galt
family—and are of the period. Dr. Alexander Middleton claimed to have
been deprived in the Revolution of instruments for amputating,
trepanning, lithotomy, cupping, couching, dissecting, dentistry, and
midwifery. The estate of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie of Williamsburg
inventoried three sets of instruments for amputating, trepanning, and
lithotomy.

The McKenzie inventory also listed the medical books in Dr. McKenzie’s
library. There were more than seventy titles, of which all but a few
were medical treatises, some of them in several volumes. Among them were
listed _James’ Dispensatory_ and _Shaw’s Dispensatory_. These, along
with _Bate’s Dispensatory_ and the _London Dispensatory_ were among the
most widely read, owned, and used books in the colony, and not alone by
doctors or apothecaries. One or more was almost certain to be in the
library of every planter of tidewater Virginia, a kind of “What to do
till the Doctor comes” manual for the home treatment of the planter
himself, his wife and children, his relatives and neighbors, and his
slaves. These dispensatories avoided the need or cost of a doctor’s
services unless the trouble was so serious as to need “expert”
attention.

This was by no means such an unwise system as at first glance may
appear. After all, the doctor would probably dose with the same
medicines from the same dispensatory, and with the same result. And
while quacks were plentiful, well-trained physicians were extremely
scarce, especially in rural areas where pay was sure to be slow and
skimpy.

In view of the general state of medical knowledge and practice
throughout the eighteenth century—bleeding being always a foremost
treatment of numerous ailments—it seems likely that the liberal use of
native herbs, being for the most part harmless, was probably the safest
and most effective course of medication. Surely human and animal
excreta, mashed-up insects, and the like, which were not uncommon in
London prescriptions, could not have been more curative than rattlesnake
root and ginseng, whose praises were sung by the famous William Byrd II:

The Earth has never produced any vegetable so friendly to man as
Ginseng. Nor do I say this at Random, or by the strength of my Faith,
but by my own Experience. I have found it very cordial and reviving
after great Fatigue, it warms the Blood, frisks the Spirits
strengthens the Stomach and comforts the Bowels exceedingly. All this
it performs with out any of those naughty Effects that might make men
too troublesome and impertinent to their poor Wives.

Then as for the Rattlesnake Root the Reputation of it encreases every
day. The Tincture of it has done Wonders in the Gout.... By its
purging, its deuretick, and diaphoretick Qualities it is of great use
in the Dropsy ... of great Efficacy in Pleuretick Feaver ... [and] a
Specifick against worms....

For the Bite of a mad Dog, ... it may perhaps be as Sure a Remedy; as
for the Bite of a Rattlesnake.

_A List of Williamsburg Apothecaries_

This list includes only those medical practitioners of
eighteenth-century Williamsburg who operated apothecary shops. It does
not include physicians who may have made up and dispensed their own
prescriptions but did not operate a shop.

Andrew Anderson (1768-1771)

Anderson studied medicine in England after serving an apprenticeship
with Dr. James Carter. Anderson returned to Williamsburg in 1768 and
formed a partnership with Dr. Carter and they purchased the shop of
William Biers. Anderson moved to New Kent County in 1771 and in 1774
married Betsey Burnet, “an agreeable young Lady, with a handsome
Fortune.”

Robert Anderson (1764)

Anderson advertised his apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1764.

William Biers (1765-1768)

Biers operated a druggist shop in Williamsburg from about 1765 to 1768
when he sold his business to Dr. Carter and Dr. Anderson. In 1769
Biers announced his intention to leave the colony.

James Carter (1751-1779)

Dr. Carter opened his apothecary shop, “the Unicorn’s Horn,” in
Williamsburg in 1751 and operated it until 1779 when he sold it to his
brother William Carter. James continued to practice medicine in
Williamsburg until his death in 1794.

William Carter (1773-1784)

In 1771 William Carter established his medical practice in Gloucester
County. In 1773 he came to Williamsburg and formed a partnership with
his brother James. Six years later he purchased his brother’s share of
“the Unicorn’s Horn,” and in 1784 he moved to Richmond where he opened
another apothecary shop.

Robert Davidson (1737-1739)

Dr. Davidson, mayor of Williamsburg, operated a druggist shop in
partnership with Thomas Goodwin from 1737 to 1739 when Davidson died.

John Minson Galt (1769-1808)

After studying medicine in England, Galt opened his apothecary shop in
1769. From 1775 until 1778 he operated a shop in partnership with Dr.
William Pasteur. In 1795 Galt was appointed visiting physician to the
hospital for the insane and in 1799 he was appointed a member of the
court of directors for the hospital.

George Gilmer, Sr. (1731-1757)

A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Gilmer established an
apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1731. He operated the shop in
connection with a successful medical practice until his death in 1757.

George Gilmer, Jr. (1766-1771)

After completing his medical studies in England, Gilmer returned to
Williamsburg in 1766 and opened his apothecary shop. In 1771 he moved
to Charlottesville and established a successful practice.

Thomas Goodwin (1735-1739)

Goodwin owned a druggist shop in Williamsburg and apparently did not
engage in a medical practice. From 1737 to 1739 he conducted the shop
in partnership with Dr. Robert Davidson.

Peter Hay (1744-1766)

Dr. Hay conducted an apothecary shop in Williamsburg from 1744 until
his death in 1766 when he was described as “one of our most eminent
physicians.”

Kenneth McKenzie (1732-1755)

Dr. McKenzie owned an apothecary shop in Williamsburg from 1732 until
his death in 1755.

Alexander Middleton (1776)

Dr. Middleton operated an apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1776.
Middleton, a tory, was forced to leave Virginia during the
Revolutionary War.

Robert Nicolson (1779-1783)

Dr. Nicolson served his apprenticeship with Dr. Pasteur and then
studied medicine in England. He returned to Williamsburg in 1779 and
opened his apothecary shop. After the Revolutionary War he moved his
shop to Yorktown where he practiced medicine until his death in 1798.

William Pasteur (1757-1791)

After the completion of his apprenticeship with Dr. George Gilmer,
Sr., Pasteur studied in England for about a year. He returned to
Williamsburg in 1757 and established an apothecary shop. From 1775 to
1778 he operated the shop in partnership with John Minson Galt.

George Pitt (1744-1768)

Dr. Pitt, born in 1724 in England and “bred a Surgeon,” established
his apothecary shop in Williamsburg in 1744 at the “Sign of the
Rhinoceros.” In 1768 he closed his shop and returned to England. He
later came back to Virginia but no longer engaged in medicine or
pharmacy. In 1776 Pitt, a tory, left Virginia again. He died later
that year in England.

Thomas Wharton (1735-1746)

Wharton arrived in Virginia about 1703 as an indentured servant to Dr.
Richard Wright. By 1735 Wharton had established an apothecary shop in
Williamsburg, which he operated until his death in 1746. He left his
drugs, medicines, and shop utensils to Dr. McKenzie.

_Suggestions for Further Reading_

Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., _The Colonial Physician & Other Essays_. New
York: Science History Publications, 1975.

——, “Medical Practice in Colonial America,” in _Symposium on Colonial
Medicine_. Williamsburg: Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown
Celebration Commission and the Virginia 350th Anniversary
Commission, 1957.

John B. Blake, _Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630-1822_.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.

Wyndham B. Blanton, _Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century_.
Richmond: Garrett and Massie, 1931.

——, _Medicine in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_. Richmond: William
Byrd Press, 1930.

John Duffy, _A History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-1866_.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1968.

Harold B. Gill, Jr., _The Apothecary in Colonial Virginia_.
Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1972.

George B. Griffenhagen, _Drug Supplies in the American Revolution_.
Washington, D. C.: Contributions from the Museum of History and
Technology, Bulletin No. 225, 1961.

——, _Tools of the Apothecary_. Washington, D. C.: American
Pharmaceutical Association, 1957.

Patrick Henderson, “Smallpox and Patriotism: The Norfolk Riots,
1768-1769.” _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_, LXXIII
(October 1965), pp. 413-424.

Thomas P. Hughes, _Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699_. Williamsburg:
Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, 1957.

Thomas Jefferson, _Notes on the State of Virginia_, ed. William Peden.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955.

Edward Kremers and George Urdang, _History of Pharmacy: A Guide and a
Survey_. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1951.

Geoffrey Marks and William K. Beatty, “The Virginia Colony,” in _The
Story of Medicine in America_. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1973.

Benjamin Rush, _The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush_, ed. George W.
Corner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948.

Richard Harrison Shryock, _Medicine and Society in America: 1660-1860_.
New York: New York University Press, 1960.

C. J. S. Thompson, _The Mystery and Art of the Apothecary_.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1929.

Surry Wood, _The Old Apothecary Shop_. Watkins Glen, N.Y.: Century
House, 1956.

_The Apothecary in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg_ was first published
in 1965 and previously reprinted in 1968, 1970, 1973, 1978, 1982, 1984,
1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990. Written by Thomas K. Ford, now retired
as editor of Colonial Williamsburg publications, it is based largely on
a monograph by Harold B. Gill, Jr. That study has been published as _The
Apothecary in Colonial Virginia_ (Williamsburg, Virginia, 1972).

Transcriber’s Notes

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.

—Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Apothecary in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - Being an Account of his medical and chirurgical Services, - as well as of his trade Practices as a Chymist" ***

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