Monday, February 20, 2012

Doctorin' in New England in the 1800s - Receipts and Records

Below I include scans from some items in my collection showing some records kept by doctors in New England in the mid-1800s. The documents give some ideas for prices for drugs and prescriptions written,

They include:

Boston - 1833 - a document of items a doctor (or citizen?) purchased for his practice: ginger, peppermint, oil of Spruce, etc.

A two-page document dated 1868 from Dr. George Brown of Barre, Massachusetts, with a signed revenue stamp affixed by his autograph on the second page. The goods were purchased from J. D. Wadsworth, a know druggist in the Boston area. Dr. George Brown was superintendent of the "Private Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth" in Barre.

Four pages of a doctors log from the 1840s with dozens of drugs listed that were given out over a period of time.

A receipt given to Dr. Josiah Graves, MD for his costs of visits to tend to the sick., 1874 from Nashua, N.H.





2 comments:

Mark said...

Wow, I continue to be amazed at how you find these documents! It seems being a doctor and an apothecary weren't that different at the time.

Jim Schmidt said...

Mark -

Thanks so much for the kind comment!

You are right...in the mid- to late-1800s it was not uncommon for a doctor to also maintain his own pharmacy, or not to do clinical practice at all but just dispense medicines and use the MD as a credential to gain business...on the other hand, anyone could buy, sell, or manufacture their medicines.