Mercury and Leeches - HS 033

HS 033

Pill Box?

Era: Late 19th Century

Details: Rochester, NY

Wow, this one took awhile to research. While you can't see the whole thing in too much detail, this is a small what I believe to be a pill box made out of a light cardboard-like material. The box has some red covering over it which has severely deteriorated over time but the label on the lid (pictured) is still in great condition. What you can read on the top is "Lane & Paine; Apothecaries; 18 Buffalo St.; Rochester, N.Y.". I can't make out what the label for the contents of the box is (to me it looks like a decaying wave function), but there is an i in it. You will have to disregard the number '14564' as it was used to describe what was put in it much later. 

After digging deep into the internet, I've come up with an approximate timeline for this guy, though I'm not 100% on the sources. I managed to find a site about Landmarks of Monroe County which says that the Paine Drug Store was moved from its location (not mentioned) to a new street in 1878 where it was renamed from Lane & Paine (both of who took over the store in 1852) to C. F. Paine & Co.. This drug store is the oldest in Rochester, NY having been originally founded in 1820. Now finding a Rochester City Hospital review/newsletter of sorts I found an ad for the apothecary from 1869 which is right when it was called Lane & Paine. If you check page 16 of the Rochester City Hospital  review you will see their advertisement which reads "Lane & Paine, Dealers in Drugs, Medicines, Chemicals, Toilet Articles, Perfumery, &c.; 18 Buffalo St., Rochester, N.Y.; Alfred S. Lane, mch, 1866. 1y, Cyrus F. Paine." 

As you can see this date the pill box to between 1852 and 1878 if all of this is correct. Now you may be wondering what an apothecary exactly is. You probably got from the ad that they are some sort of pharmacist-like professionals. This is because apothecaries where the precursors to modern day pharmacies, though they were a bit different. Unlike pharmacists today, many apothecaries would also act like physicians performing operations, looking and diagnosing patients, preparing and selling drugs and medicines, performing procedures that would be considered medieval in today's standards, and selling things like tobacco and homemade remedies. This includes prescribing leeches to drain blood from patients who had 'too much' and hanging drowning victims by their feet from trees and pulling them up and down. Their main tools of the trade were the famous mortar and pestles used for mixing and grinding herbs to make medicines and would even go so far to prescribe mercury to patients. There is much much more information available at this apothecary website which will give an in-depth look into the lives of these practitioners, I encourage you all to have a look.