Among the articles with which the Williamsburg shop is furnished are a number that belonged to the first Dr. Galt that have been obtained from his descendants or generously loaned by them to Colonial Williamsburg. The largest is the secretary-bookcase that stands in the back office, the most numerous are the scores of glass bottles and cardboard pillboxes that cluster on one section of the shelves, and perhaps the most interesting are his diplomas in anatomy, surgery, and midwifery that hang on the wall. Vying with the last name is the account book displaying a charge of 7 shillings against Patrick Henry—but no entry to show that the bill was ever paid.
It would require more space than is here available to describe, or even to list, all the articles in the shop today, and to identify all the drugs, herbs, powders, and compounds that would have been contained in the numerous bottles, jars, boxes, and drawers of the shop. The quantity and variety, however, may be taken as typical of a well provided apothecary shop of colonial America.
One should note in particular the surgical instruments in their velvet-lined cases. These have been collected from various sources—including one case of lancets and a set of scales from the Galt family—and are of the period. Dr. Alexander Middleton claimed to have been deprived in the Revolution of instruments for amputating, trepanning, lithotomy, cupping, couching, dissecting, dentistry, and midwifery. The estate of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie of Williamsburg inventoried three sets of instruments for amputating, trepanning, and lithotomy.
The McKenzie inventory also listed the medical books in Dr. McKenzie’s library. There were more than seventy titles, of which all but a few were medical treatises, some of them in several volumes. Among them were listed James’ Dispensatory and Shaw’s Dispensatory. These, along with Bate’s Dispensatory and the London Dispensatory were among the most widely read, owned, and used books in the colony, and not alone by doctors or apothecaries. One or more was almost certain to be in the library of every planter of tidewater Virginia, a kind of “What to do till the Doctor comes” manual for the home treatment of the planter himself, his wife and children, his relatives and neighbors, and his slaves. These dispensatories avoided the need or cost of a doctor’s services unless the trouble was so serious as to need “expert” attention.
This was by no means such an unwise system as at first glance may appear. After all, the doctor would probably dose with the same medicines from the same dispensatory, and with the same result. And while quacks were plentiful, well-trained physicians were extremely scarce, especially in rural areas where pay was sure to be slow and skimpy.
In view of the general state of medical knowledge and practice throughout the eighteenth century—bleeding being always a foremost treatment of numerous ailments—it seems likely that the liberal use of native herbs, being for the most part harmless, was probably the safest and most effective course of medication. Surely human and animal excreta, mashed-up insects, and the like, which were not uncommon in London prescriptions, could not have been more curative than rattlesnake root and ginseng, whose praises were sung by the famous William Byrd II:
The Earth has never produced any vegetable so friendly to man as Ginseng. Nor do I say this at Random, or by the strength of my Faith, but by my own Experience. I have found it very cordial and reviving after great Fatigue, it warms the Blood, frisks the Spirits strengthens the Stomach and comforts the Bowels exceedingly. All this it performs with out any of those naughty Effects that might make men too troublesome and impertinent to their poor Wives.
Then as for the Rattlesnake Root the Reputation of it encreases every day. The Tincture of it has done Wonders in the Gout.... By its purging, its deuretick, and diaphoretick Qualities it is of great use in the Dropsy ... of great Efficacy in Pleuretick Feaver ... [and] a Specifick against worms....
For the Bite of a mad Dog, ... it may perhaps be as Sure a Remedy; as for the Bite of a Rattlesnake.
A List of Williamsburg Apothecaries
This list includes only those medical practitioners of eighteenth-century Williamsburg who operated apothecary shops. It does not include physicians who may have made up and dispensed their own prescriptions but did not operate a shop.
Andrew Anderson (1768-1771)