Dose of History – Hot Sodas
As the weather grew cold, it was common for drugstores to sell “hot-sodas”, with one pharmaceutical trade magazine from 1919 stating that “Chocolates, beef bouillon, tomato puree, [and] malted milk with egg are among the hot-soda standbys”. Although some of these flavors may seem odd to the modern reader, hot-soda may have been closer to […]
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Dose of History – Pharmacy and the Holidays
Drugstores nowadays are not generally considered the best place to do your Thanksgiving shopping. In 1929, however, one columnist writing for the trade magazine Druggist’s Circular argued otherwise: “in the pharmacopeia […] will be found cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs, lemon peel, and orange peel. Then, too, coriander, anise, celery seed, dill, allspice and mace”. Indeed, […]
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Dose of History – Women & the Pharmaceutical Press
The early twentieth century saw a considerable increase in the amount of women working in medical fields. This was the product of a number of trends, including the Women’s Suffrage Movement, the professionalization of American medicine, and the gradual supplantation of apprenticeship in favor of academic training. Pharmacy in particular was comparatively accessible for many […]
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Dose of History – Sister Pharmacists
Although Catholic Sister nurses were operating in North America since the eighteenth century, waves of immigration from regions with significant Catholic populations in the nineteenth century would dramatically increase their numbers. There was a perpetual demand for nurses throughout this period, and Sisters played a major role in alleviating this shortage. During the cholera outbreaks […]
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Dose of History – A Brief History of Drug Advertising and Regulation
Prior to 1906, the medicine market looked very different than it does today. Prescriptions were not necessary and patients were generally able to self-medicate without consulting a doctor or pharmacist. The actual contents of medicines were not always known to the buyer as the manufacturers were not obligated to make their proprietary formulas public. As […]
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Dose of History – Detailing and the Origins of DTCA
From the 1930s to the 1980s, ads for drugs were aimed almost exclusively at pharmacists and physicians. Typically, advertising was conducted in one of two ways: ads were placed in magazines directed at pharmacists or they were sold in-person by pharmaceutical marketing representatives, commonly known as detailers or detailmen. Detailers were (and still are) a […]
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Dose of History – Sulfanilamide and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
In the fall of 1937, over 100 people died from consuming an antibiotic called “elixir of sulfanilamide”. This prompted a protracted scandal which would implicate drug manufacturers, pharmacists, and the federal government, eventually resulting in a fundamental shift in how drugs were regulated in the United States. Although it was discovered in 1908, sulfanilamide did […]
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Dose of History – Drug Advertising pre and post Pure Food and Drug Act
Throughout 1905 and 1906, the American magazine Collier’s published a series of articles by journalist Samuel A. Hopkins exposing the “fraud and poison” of the American pharmaceutical industry. One practice that drew Adams’ particular ire was the manufacture and sale of patent medicines–that is, medicines sold under brand names that were freely available without the […]
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