Page 10 - Pharmacy History 32 July 2007

(Cont. from page 10)
We learn that in those days cash payments for goods were practically unknown, business being mostly on bills, the wholesale houses drawing on same each month.
In the Williamstown Trade Circular of April 26, 1856.appears the following: Benson Bros., wholesale and
retail druggists, Thompson Street, Williamstown.
Ship’s medicine chests refitted and prescriptions carefully prepared.
In the same issue the Williamstown Medical Hall is also mentioned.
One of the most interesting of the old records relating to the beginnings of the profession is contained within some chronicles of an immigrant named William Kelly, who arrived in Victoria from California in 1853. From his writings he appears to have been a keen observer and an efficient chronicler. The writer describes a visit to Canvas Town (now South Melbourne) for
the purpose of selecting a site for a temporary home. Canvas Town he describes as ‘a confused swarm of tents, pitched at random on a hillside, like a flock of pigeons after a long flight.’ Strolling around the ‘streets,’ he descants upon the different business occupations as they were then
appearing, so to speak, ‘in the
bud,’ and among them a Mr Scott, hairdresser, who in a discarded ship’s galley ‘set razors, drew teeth, and bled. N.B.- Mrs S makes up medicines during Mr. S’s absence.’ (One wonders what the powers that be at 360 Swanston Street were thinking of to permit such a haphazard exhibition of the chosen profession!)
He pauses to admire ‘the druggist’s little shop, so trim and bright,
and dustless, and so attractively arranged, that I wagered with myself there was a lady in the establishment.’
He vividly describes the shop as not more than six feet square and about the same high, built of weatherboards in front of a tent. Inside three of the walls appeared to be entirely built of drugs and chemicals, on a basement of boards painted and lettered to resemble drawers. On this basement were two rows of white enamelled jars, neatly labelled in gold letters on a black ground, above them rising three graduated tiers of flint bottles of various lines, with glass stoppers.
‘Then came a nice line of Seidlitz powders in pasteboard boxes, all surmounted by. a light cornice of small ointment pots and empty pill- boxes.’ (Apparently they were not averse to attractive dummies even in those days.)
The window contained ‘one of the usual large globular bottles filled
with a liquid to match the emerald verdure of the Hill.’ This was flanked on either side with a white jar marked ‘Leeches,’ and the rest of the window space was occupied by pomade pots labelled ‘Genuine bear’s grease’
Anusol
To show that there really isn’t that much really new in pharmacy these days, consider this media announcement...
Haemorrhoid cream ‘not for the face’
German drugs maker Schering warned consumers today not to use haemorrhoid cream on their faces.
The warning came after a male stylist said on Norwegian television that many photo models used the cream in the morning to get rid of puffy eyes, which the drug company said seemed to have boosted demand for such products at pharmacies.
‘This is a pharmaceutical and not a cosmetic,’ the group’s Norwegian subsidiary Schering Norge AS said in a statement, warning especially to keep haemorrhoid cream out of the eyes.
From: Reuters Daily Telegraph October 06, 2006
10 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 3 ■ no 32 ■ JULY 2007