In the wholesale branch of the trade, some 75 years ago, the hours of business were from 7 o clock in the morning until 9 o'clock at night. There were no railroads then, and means of communication between one part of the country and another were very primitive. After the Erie Canal was opened, the change in conditions brought about a corresponding change in busi ness methods. 'Instead of dragging along through the year, the wholesale druggist had two busy seasons. There was a rush of trade in the spring, and another rush just prior to the close of navigation in the fall, and clerks, at these times in the year, were often required to remain at work until midnight.
The outbreak of the Civil War had an effect upon the drug trade just as it had upon every branch of business in the North. Many large outstanding accounts were canceled, and many houses, as the result, went out of business, although there were perhaps fewer failures in the wholesale drug line than in other branches of business.
To realize what a great variety of articles were included in the stock of the wholesale druggists of the olden times, it is only necessary to peruse some of the advertisements which such houses published some 100 years ago, while the extent of the purely drtig stock may be pretty accurately approximated by a comparison of one of the early pharmacopoeias with the current edition. The volume for 1830 is, per haps, the best one to which we can refer to ascertain the condition of affairs which existed during the two or three decades prior to its issue. According to that authority there were 272 articles of materia medics, while 349 proc esses were given for preparations, making a total of but 621 titles. Sixty years later, the °United States Pharmacopoeia' had no less than 994 titles, while the °National Formulary,' a semi-official work of almost equal practical im portance, had 435 more titles, making a total of 1,429 articles, or preparations, which the apothe cary was able to furnish a customer upon demand.
Of course, the wholesale druggist of those days was compelled to carry many articles which were not strictly entitled to a place upon the pages of the pharmacopoeias. In fact, this feature of the drug trade has so greatly ex tended that reference to recent price-lists issued by the prominent jobbing houses shows that there are now more than 5,700 articles in the department of drugs, chemicals, oils, etc., and close upon 8,000 articles in the department of °patent' or proprietary medicines. More over, if one should go so far as to include the almost incalculable number of articles which come under the head of °druggists' sundries,' to say nothing of the °secret proprietary' medi cines which, being confined largely to local trade, do not appear upon any general price-list, there is little doubt that the figures already given would be doubled; a fact which makes it safe to estimate that there are no less than 25,000 different articles handled by the drug trade of to-day.
So far as the retail druggist was concerned, his business at that period was largely a mat ter of °go as you please?) If he could pre pare, from the crude material, the prescriptions of the local physicians, he had succeeded in .fulfilling the object of his existence. To-day, however, he enjoys most superior facilities, for while he is still required to be acquainted with all processes, he has the convenience of being able to purchase the greater portion of his stock ready for dispensing. To afford such facilities the business of manufacturing phar macy has been developed, during the past fifty odd years, into a distinct department of the drug trade.
Without laying undue stress upon the wonderful advances in inorganic chemistry, and especially in the remarkable work accomplished in the discovery and improvements of anzsthet ics, there can be no question that the evolution of organic chemistry is one of the most stupendous scientific triumphs recorded since the middle of the 19th century. Withler's dis covery, in 1828, that urea could be manufac tured artificially from isocyanate of ammonium was really the first step taken toward the synthetic production of organic compounds, for, up to that period, it had been the undisputed theory of the scientists that no organic com pound was possible except through the medium of °vital force' WOhler opened the way to further experiments along such lines, however, and, since 1828, innumerable compounds of an organic nature have been prepared synthetically, many of which are of such great commercial importance that they are manufactured in ex tensive quantities. Among such compounds, for example, is alizarine, the chief coloring prin ple of madder root, of which fully $20,000,000 worth is produced annually from coal tar. Oxalic acid, which formerly came from the juice of the sorrel, is now artificially produced, at one-tenth its former cost, by the use of saw dust and caustic soda ; while salicylic acid, which was formerly derived from the oil of winter green, is now produced more easily through the action of carbon dioxide upon carbolic acid and caustic soda. Not only has the chemist suc ceeded in producing many of the most im portant organic compounds in his own labora tory, however, but, during the past quarter of a century, he has discovered a vast number of new and interesting synthetic chemicals which have never been found in living plants and animals, among them, antipyrine, exalgine, phenacetine, etc. Moreover, as the number of these compounds which are of importance therapeutically is constantly increasing, such progress as is represented by these discoveries in allied science has exerted a powerful in fluence in elevating the drug trade to its present high position.