Monday, April 11, 2016

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in the 1800's

From: herbmuseum.ca


"This pharmaceutical firm was another of the establishments founded by brothers. This time is was John Wyeth and his younger brother Frank of Philadelphia. Their great uncle Noah Wyeth was one of the group which participated in the now famous Boston Tea Party...

John Wyeth- born in 1834 - enrolled in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy for their two year course. This in 1852, at a time when others has only an apprenticeship in a pharmacy- if that. Upon graduation in 1854 he worked in a leading Philadelphian pharmacy until 1860. Then in that same year John and Frank Wyeth opened their own drugstore at Walnut Street in Philadelphia. It can be said that they were an immediate success.

Having had a taste of research after writing his thesis on the properties of Gillenia trifoliata, John Wyeth made his aim the improvement of the taste of pharmaceutical products. He became famous for "sweetened tinctures" or "elixirs" as they are now known...

In 1862, John Wyeth and Brother could publish a catalog listing the Wyeth preparations available in labeled bottles for wholesale distribution. During the Civil War the firm supplied the Union Army with many medicines. John Wyeth and Brother specialized in compressed tablets and sugar coated tablets. Glycerine Suppositories produced in the United States were first made by Wyeth- as were soluble gelatin capsules and effervescent salts."
- p. 273, Wyeth in History of Pharmacy and the Pharmaceutical Industry (1982)

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