Glass jars showed the way to local pharmacy

THE Echo's recent report on the 190th anniversary of Topsham Pharmacy, highlighted the ancient carboys that still grace the shop's Fore Street windows.

The carboys appear in all the photographs of the pharmacy, many of which are more than 100 years old.

Carboys are a recognised symbol of the pharmaceutical profession and date back to the 1600s. They guided people to the presence of a pharmacy when literacy levels were low.

During the 18th century, plate glass and larger windows were introduced and carboys became a regular part of the window decoration, used to attract people to the pharmacy.

During the 1900s, gas burners were placed behind the carboys to light them up. However, in the 1920s, carboys started to go out of fashion.

Pharmacies were selling more items and the windows were used for product and packaging based displays. Topsham Pharmacy is fortunate that its carboys were retained.

The carboys were brightly coloured in order to attract custom. Different colours were used for different minerals and elements and it was important to have a solution that did not fade: Yellow for gold, green for copper and purple for mercury

A Victorian pharmacist worked long days. The shop opened at 7am and closed at 10pm. Prescriptions were written out by the local physician, always in Latin.

There were no suppliers, other than for ingredients and patent remedies, and although patent medicines were sold, these were mainly for poorer customers who could not afford to pay the druggist to prepare the treatment himself.

The Topsham shop would have been filled with the smell of ingredients drifting from the dispensary. Most medicines were prepared by the druggist based on his own formula. Ingredients for tablets were taken from various jars, combined with an agent such as soap, made into a paste and then moulded into a tablet form.

The shop would have been fitted out in polished mahogany. Large shelves containing jars filled with ingredients for medicines and tablets would have lined the walls.

On a shelf, out of the reach of customers, an ornate sealed jar containing medicinal leeches, would have been available in case a patient needed bleeding. Poisons were freely available over the counter and were not kept in separate, locked cabinets.

Some poisons were even used in medicines, for example bitter tonics containing strychnine to stimulate appetites and improve muscle tone. Laws governing the sale of poisons were not introduced until 1868.

In addition to jars containing medicinal ingredients, the shop would have been filled with other items for sale.

Soaps, shaving foam, as well as tobacco, ink, lemonade and even bullets, sold as 'sporting ammunition' would have filled the shelves.

Despite the availability of treatments, many would not have worked. There were no antibiotics, sanitation was poor and infant mortality high.