Just prior to May 1, Craigie returned to Carlisle, where the "Elaboratory and Stores for the reception of the medicines &c. belonging to the military hospitals" was established,[139] and complained that he did not find the medicinal store in the order which he expected to find it:
We have many important medicines but by no means an assortment sufficient for the Army. I speak only of what is now in store. There are Medicines in different places of which I have no list.
Craigie further noted that Cutting had come up from Yellow Springs on May 1 to confer regarding plans for completing medicine chests, and would leave the following day for Baltimore where he obviously was going to try to purchase more drugs.
Craigie was puzzled by the establishment of a dispensing store at Yellow Springs, and asked whether or not the plan was
... to have the principle Store at Carlisle, where all the medicines shall be prepared, and the Chests compleated supposing the Genl. Hospitals will be more collected, and the number lessened. I would propose that an Apothecary attend each with a compleate Chest of Medicines; that the Surgeon & Physician Genl of the Army be attended by an Apothecary with good Chest, and the Regiments supply'd upon the Northern Plan. I would have an Issuing Store established at a convenient distance from the Army, from which the Hospital and Regimental Chests might occasionally be replenished.[140]
A sizable stock of drugs was finally received from Baltimore,[141] and a fairly good stock was brought down from the stores in the Northern Department, which were left well supplied by Craigie and Potts.[142] An improved plan for obtaining lint from the Moravian Sisters at Bethlehem and Lititz was proposed by Dr. Brown,[143] and "the propriety of setting the glass works at Manheim agoing" was offered as a solution by Craigie for obtaining much needed vials.[144] Local manufacturing at Carlisle[145] and "in the Jersies"[146] was used as a source of volatile and purging salts.
Gibson records[147] that between April 19 and May 3, 1778, the commands of Generals Patterson, Leonard, Poor, Glover, Scott, and Woodward turned in their medicine chests to Apothecary Cutting at Yellow Springs, and that every regiment received a standardized field box containing a definite list and quantity of necessary drugs and supplies. However, it appears likely that the project started by Cutting and continued by Craigie was not completed until late June at the earliest.[148] The "invoice of those things thought essential for the protection and health of soldiers in the field or camp" presented by Gibson[149] is actually an "Invoice of a Chest of medicines &c. compleated in the medicinal Store, N[orthern] D[epartmen]t for Thos. Tillotson Esq."[150] Inasmuch as the plan used in the Northern Department was employed by both Craigie and Cutting, the items on this invoice may serve as a reasonably good picture of the medicine chests of '78 as compared with those of '76 (see page 130).
One of the reasons for better supplies at a time when other conditions were even worse than they were in 1776 is the fact that Congress was advancing sizable, if not always completely adequate, amounts of money for the cash purchase of supplies instead of seeking credit or expecting those responsible to procure supplies by using their personal money and waiting on Congress to reimburse them. During 1778, Congress advanced some $940,000 to Purveyor General Potts alone for the exclusive use of the hospital department, and these funds were in turn distributed to the proper medical procurement officers, including the apothecaries. It is significant to compare the sum of $1,095,000 provided by Congress in 1778 with £10,000 (about $27,000) which, according to Morgan, was the limit for medical and hospital supplies in 1776.[151] True, inflation had set in by 1778, and the value of money had declined greatly. For example, cantharides purchased from the Marshalls' apothecary shop in Philadelphia in 1776 cost 10 shillings per pound as compared with the cantharides Craigie purchased in Baltimore in 1778 at £20 per pound. However, the worst of the inflation was yet to come.[152]
In Summary