Glass and British pharmacy, 1600-1900 : a survey and guide to the Wellcome Collection of British glass / J.K. Crellin and J.R. Scott.

  • Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine.
Date:
1972
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Glass and British pharmacy, 1600-1900 : a survey and guide to the Wellcome Collection of British glass / J.K. Crellin and J.R. Scott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    5 — Treatise on Pharmacology, London, 1821, p323. Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ms. 342, f 9. A Catalogue of Medical Earthenware, Glass, Phar- maceutical Implements, Utensils Boxes... Also ofa variety of Show Jars, Glass Cases, Counter Desks The earliest illustration depicting rows of carboys is probably the Dutch painting, The Apothecary’s Shop by Willem van Mieris (1662-1747). See Connoisseur, 1954, 133, 128. What also appear to be show globes, though they have no feet and could just as well be carboys, feature in the caricature The Devonshire Method to Restore a Lost Member. Publ. 14th April 1784 by [name erased ] Great Russell St Covent Garden (see George, D., Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires, London, 1938, vol VI, p98). Since the counter is directly in front of the shelves of con- tainers, it is not clear whether the containers are in fact dressing a window. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (published 1843), quoted from Chapman and Hall illustrated edition, chapter V, p104. Chem. & Drugg., 1889, 35, 673. Other accidents arose from the cracking of badly annealed vessels, with consequent flooding by the contents. La Wall, C.H., Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy, Philadelphia, 1927, pp488-489. For an instance of the undoubted use of the carboys for tincture making, see ‘A distinguished Midlands pharmacy’, Chem. & Drugg., 1945, 143, 659-661. Op. cit., (fn18), p141. Op. cit., (fn 43), plate 1. A year later, in A Catalogue of the Most Modern and Approved Surgical and Veterinary Instruments, Trusses, Pharmaceutical Implements, ... Manufactured and sold by Zaccheus Hunter, Mason & Co., London, Ist January 1838, three specie jars are listed (p85), labelled RASS:CORN:CERV, MAGNESIA, and TURKEY RHUBARB respectively. The York Glass Company ... Chemists and Drug- gists supplied with Stoppered Rounds, Specie Jars, Pear-shaped Globes, Flint Jars and Carboys ..., York, nd, p12. It is not clear whether the York items were decora- ted in York, the company’s smaller specie jars, at least, being labelled ‘in gold and enamel, by Superior London Artists’ (ibid., p13). One of these was perhaps Albert J. Harris Medical Labeller and Ornamental Writer on Glass in Burnished Gold, 1 Little Warner Street, Clerkenwell, EC who advertised in the Chemist and Druggist (eg on 15th November 1862). He also stated ‘show jars labelled in the most superior manner, to any design, cheaper a2 53 54 ae) 56 =) 58 29 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 than any other house in England’. For some data on labelling practice at the time in Edinburgh see Drummond, C.G., ‘Pharmacy and Medicine in Victorian Edinburgh’, Pharm. J., 1968, 220, 178-182. Dickens, C., Sketches by Boz (published 1833-36), quoted from Oxford University Press edition, 1966, pp182-183. Advertisements are in the Chemist and Druggist Views 1838-1840, Nattaliand Maurice, London, 1969. Knight, C. (ed.), London, London, 1843, vol 5, p391. Chem. & Drugg., 1894, 45, 774-780. Ibid., pp782-3. The activity of the Chemist and Druggist is well seen in Chemists’ Windows, An Illustrated Treatise on the Art of Displaying Pharmaceutical and Allied Goods in Chemists’ Shop Windows, published at the offices of The Chemist and Druggist, London, 1915. Particularly good examples of carboy displays are shown in the photographs of Brighton pharmacies published in the Chem. & Drugg., 1905, 67, 188-189. The Retail Chemist, 1931, January, 12-15. See, too, catalogues of pharmaceutical ware, where the sale of pharmaceutical equipment to chemists and druggists was made explicit at the expense of apothecaries (for refs. to catalogues see footnotes 43, 49, 50). The Lancet., 1871, 2, 37. A thumbnail-sketch of a shop fascia board reading ‘Kernot Surgeon’, appears in the Chem. & Drugg., 1905, 66, 22, though the shop was then being operated as a chemist and druggist only. Lucas, J., A Candid Inquiry jnto the Education, Qualifications and Office of a Surgeon-Apothecary, London, 1800, p137. Powell, R., The Pharmacopoeia of the Royal College of Physicians of London, MDCCCILX translated into English with notes, London, 1815 (3rd ed.) p9. Mohr, F., and Redwood, T., Practical Pharmacy, London, 1848, p15. John Day & Co, Druggists and Chemists, Catalogue of Drugs, Chymical and Galenical Preparations, Shop Furniture, Patent Medicines, and Surgeons Instruments, Philadelphia, 1771, p28. Lucas, J., op. cit. (fn62), facing p144. Cf the catalogues noted in footnotes 43, 49 and 50. See The York Glass Company (Limited) 65