CHAPTER XVII

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PHARMACISTS’ SYMBOLS.

The art of the pharmacist is old; it is assuredly of prehistoric origin. The reader of Dioscorides or of Pliny is astonished at the number of herbs and other things used as medicines and the complexness of many popular prescriptions. Referring to the pharmacist, it is curiously observed, in “Ecclesiasticus,” that “of his works there shall be no end.”[506] In other days than ours there was evidently a morbid taste for the multiplication of remedies of doubtful worth,—a deplorable infirmity of many physicians.

It is stated by Ebers, in his “Egyptian Princess,” that each of the Egyptian temples had its laboratory and apothecary. There is a list of two hundred drugs which were kept in the temple of Edfu. But just when the preparation and sale of medicines became a special business cannot be stated. In early times it was customary for the physician to compound his own prescriptions, as is done in rural places yet. Mr. Fort remarks that “toward the conclusion of the third century the first indications present themselves of the existence of a class of [Roman] citizens to whose vigilant care was confided the preparation of medicaments ordered by attendant physicians.”[507] The same writer says: “The storage of medicinal supplies seems to have approximated the pharmacy in the twelfth century, although even earlier the word _apothecary_ appears to have been interchangeable with the booth where assorted wares were offered at public sale.”[508] At the end of the twelfth century the Bishop of London was named _apothecarius_, or pharmacist, to King Henry,—a fact which proves that the art of Bolus was then, at least, highly esteemed.

Now, although the establishment of the pharmacist has mysteries in abundance connected with it, the special symbols pertaining to the business are but few. The chief and most characteristic one is the MORTAR AND PESTLE. In Larwood and Hotten’s interesting book it is said: “One of the signs originally used exclusively by apothecaries was the mortar and pestle, their well-known implements for pounding drugs.”[509] In an attractive form and generally gilded, it is to be seen at nearly all pharmacies in this country. Only occasionally is it pictured. I know an instance in Philadelphia where Cupid is represented in connection with it; but this is as absurd an addition as the negro youth who is using the pestle in another. An eagle—the national bird—is sometimes represented hovering over it. The pestle used for grinding corn was deified by the Romans under the name of Pilumnus. In connection with the mortar it is highly spoken of in the sacred books of the Hindus.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.—MORTAR AND PESTLE.]

The skull and cross-bones has come to be of pharmaceutical significance. Placed on the label of a vial, it implies that the contents are poisonous, and should be used with intelligence and care. It has been in use from an early date as an emblem of death. Formerly, it was often placed on tombstones.

BOTTLES or VASES, colored or containing colored liquids, are of pharmaceutic import. The question of the origin of their use as signs is often asked. It cannot be definitely answered. But, as to how the custom originated one may confidently say that it arose from the common-sense desire of the dealer in medicinal wares to make the fact obvious to the passer-by. The confectioner does essentially the same thing, and so, indeed, do the grocer and many others.

By turning to Larwood and Hotten’s book it will be seen that a golden bottle has been used as a banker’s and a goldsmith’s sign; also, that bottles of various kinds have in other days, as now, decorated many a tavern-front.

Hence, a bottle or vase can hardly be regarded as a symbol, and much less the exclusive symbol of a dealer in medicines. If it were similar in every instance, and had something special in its form or color, or both, it might be so regarded.

As it is, one cannot very well regard it in any other light than as a part of the dealer’s ordinary stock. Still, it must be said that there is something decidedly distinct and special about it, as seen in the pharmacist’s window.

In this country, at least, the shape of the vase or vases (for there are generally three or four) and their color are not subject to any rule; and, in fact, there are a few stores in Philadelphia in which there are none. The favorite colors seem to be light green, claret, light blue, and amber.

It is very probable that the presence of special colored liquids in show-bottles does not date back much farther than, if as far as, 1617,—the time when the apothecaries became a distinct class from grocers, in England. Certainly, some of the beautiful shades of color are very modern.

Exhibiting bottles containing actual medicines is doubtless a much more ancient practice than that of exhibiting them for the sake of their own showiness or that of the solutions placed therein. That has, in all probability, been customary from the time when dealing in drugs began. When was that?

It is known that the art of the pharmacist and trading in drugs were practiced at an early period in Egypt. Thus, in the “Papyrus-Ebers,” which was written 1600 years before our era, we learn that for most diseases remedies were prescribed, drawn from all three kingdoms of nature, and in some instances were brought from distant lands. The prescriptions, I may add, were compounded according to exact weights and measures. Two recipes for pills are given: one with honey for women, and one without it for men. One for the preparation of a hair-dye, ascribed to the mother-in-law[510] of the first king of Egypt is given, which Ebers states[511] to be the earliest of all recipes preserved to us, the date of its origin being about 4000 B.C.

I could give many Egyptian and other ancient references to fancy vessels of glass and other materials used in the pursuit of ministering to the sick. One extremely interesting direct reference to the use of medicinal vases at a very early date has recently been brought to the attention of the public. I refer to a translation of an Assyrian fragment made by Mr. J. Halevy, given in “The Records of the Past.”[512] It is so interesting from several points of view that I will give it here in its entirety:—

“For the eruptions and humors which afflict the body: Fill a vase which has held drugs with water from an inexhaustible well; Put in it a shoot of ⸺ a ⸺ reed, some date-sugar, some urine, some bitter hydromel Add to it some ⸺; Saturate it with pure water [and] Pour upon it the water of the [sick] man. Cut reeds in an elevated meadow; Beat some pure date-sugar with some pure honey; Add some sweet oil which comes from the mountain; Mix them together. Rub [with this ointment] the body of the [sick man].”

The reference to the “art of the apothecary” made in the Bible[513] has been regarded as “the first recorded notice upon the subject of medicine and pharmacy,”—as, for example, by the late professor, Dr. George B. Wood;[514] but here we have explicit evidence that farther back, say 1000 years before the time of Moses, people were in the habit of having medicines stored in vases of a set kind, and that the Babylonians had considerable pharmaceutical knowledge, as well as that their medical practice was not exclusively magical; or, as Mr. Halevy puts it, “it proves that the Babylonians were in the possession of a rational medicine as well as a magical one.”[515] He further remarks that it is “the only known specimen of an Assyro-Babylonian prescription.”

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