Drug Supplies in the American Revolution

Part 1

Produced by Stacy Brown, Colin Bell, Joseph Cooper and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

George B. Griffenhagen

DRUG SUPPLIES in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Paper 16, pages 109-133, from

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

United States National Museum BULLETIN 225

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C., 1961

Contributions from

The Museum of History and Technology

Paper 16

Drug Supplies in the American Revolution

George B. Griffenhagen

CONTINENTAL MEDICINE CHESTS 111

TREASON, POISON, AND SIEGE 113

FROM BAD TO WORSE 115

"MEDICINES--NONE" 118

PRIVATEERS TO THE RESCUE 121

BRISK BUSINESS IN BOSTON 122

THE SITUATION IMPROVES 122

VALLEY FORGE 123

IN SUMMARY 129

DRUG SUPPLIES IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

by George B. Griffenhagen

At the start of the Revolution, the Colonies were cut off from the source of their usual drug supply, England. A few drugs trickled through from the West Indies, but by 1776 there was an acute shortage.

Lack of coordination and transportation resulted in a scarcity of drugs for the army hospitals even while druggists in other areas resorted to advertising in order to sell their stocks. Some relief came from British prize ships captured by the American navy and privateers, but the chaotic condition of drug supply was not eased until the alliance with France early in 1778.

The Author: George Griffenhagen--formerly curator of medical sciences, United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution--is director of communications, American Pharmaceutical Association, and managing editor, Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association.

As one historian has reminded us, "few fields of history have been more intensively cultivated by successive generations of historians; few offer less reward in the shape of fresh facts or theories" than does the American Revolutionary War. This is true to some extent even in the medical history of the Revolution. The details of the feud within the medical department of the army have been told and retold. Even accounts of the drugs employed and pharmaceutical services have been presented, primarily in the form of biographies and as reviews of the Lititz Pharmacopoeia of 1778. However, practically nothing has been published on the actual availability of medical supplies. Furthermore, the discovery of several significant but unrecorded account books of private druggists who furnished sizable quantities of drugs to the Continental Army and a careful re-evaluation of the unusually significant papers of Dr. Jonathan Potts, Revolutionary War surgeon, justify a review of the drug supplies during the early years of the war.

Continental Medicine Chests

Part 2

As early as February 21, 1775, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts appointed a committee to determine what medical supplies would be necessary should colonial troops be required to take the field. Three days later the Congress voted to "make an inquiry where fifteen doctor's chests can be got, and on what terms"; and on March 7 it directed the committee of supplies "to make a draft in favor of Doct. Joseph Warren and Doct. Benjamin Church, for five hundred pounds, lawful money, to enable them to purchase such articles for the provincial chests of medicine as cannot be got on credit."

A unique ledger of the Greenleaf apothecary shop of Boston reveals that this pharmacy on April 4, 1775, supplied at least 5 of the 15 chests of medicines. The account, in the amount of just over £247, is listed in the name of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and shows that £51 was paid in cash by Dr. Joseph Warren. The remaining £196 was not paid until August 10, after Warren had been killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The 15 medicine chests, including presumably the five supplied by Greenleaf, were distributed on April 18--three at Sudbury and two each at Concord, Groton, Mendon, Stow, Worcester, and Lancaster. No record has been found to indicate whether or not the British discovered the medical chests at Concord, but, inasmuch as the patriots were warned of the British movement, it is very likely that the chests were among the supplies that were carried off and hidden. The British destroyed as much of the remainder as they could locate.

Two days after the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Provincial Congress ordered that a man and horse be made available to transport medicines. On April 30, Andrew Craigie was appointed to take care of these medical stores and deliver them as ordered.

Medical supplies were an early source of anxiety to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. The supply of drugs in Boston must have been largely controlled by the British after Lexington-Concord, and the limited supply in the neighboring smaller towns was soon exhausted. Four days before the Battle of Bunker Hill the Congress "Ordered that Doct. Whiting, Doct. Taylor and Mr. Parks, be a committee to consider some method of supplying the several surgeons of the army with medicines," and further "Ordered that the same committee bring in a list of what medicines are in the medical store."

On June 10 the responsibility of furnishing medical supplies to the army at Cambridge shifted to Philadelphia when the Continental Congress accepted the request of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to assume control and direction of the forces assembled around Boston. The Continental Congress established a Continental Hospital Plan on July 27, but it was not until September 14 that the Congress appointed a "committee to devise ways and means for supplying the Continental Army with medicines." On this same day, the deputy commissary general was directed to pay Dr. Samuel Stringer for the medicines he purchased, which, as we learn later, were the initial supply for the Canadian campaign.

The first recorded purchase of drugs made directly by Congress, on September 23, was "a parcel of Drugs in the hands of Mr. Rapalje, which he offers at the prime cost." Then, on November 10, Congress ordered that the medicine purchased in Philadelphia for the army at Cambridge be sent there by land. But difficulties of supply commenced early. On January 1, 1776, Eliphalet Dyer wrote Joseph Trumbull asking "how could the cask of Rhubarb which was sent by order of Congress and was extremely wanted in the Hospital lye by to this time. After you came way I wrote to Daniel Brown to see it delivered."

In the fall of 1775 there must have been a reasonably good stock of drugs in the hands of private Philadelphia druggists, and until the end of summer there were still a number of ships from Jamaica, Bermuda, Antigua, and Barbados putting in at Philadelphia with supplies, much of which originally came from England. Philadelphia druggists included William Drewet Smith, "Chemist and Druggist at Hippocrates's Head in Second Street"; Dr. George Weed in Front Street; Robert Bass, "Apothecary in Market-Street"; Dr. Anthony Yeldall "at his Medicinal Ware-House in Front-Street"; and the firm of Sharp Delaney and William Smith. The largest pharmacy in Philadelphia was operated by the Marshall brothers--Christopher Jr. and Charles. This pharmacy had been established in 1729 at Front and Chestnut Streets by Christopher Marshall, Sr., a patriot who took an active part in the care of the sick and wounded in Philadelphia hospitals during the Revolution.

As the plans progressed for raising troops from New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, Congress called on the committee on medicines "to procure proper medicine chests for the battalions...." The journal of the Continental Congress fails to indicate the source of these medicine chests, but the Marshall brothers' manuscript "waste book" (daily record) for the period February 21 to July 6, 1776, indicates that the Marshall apothecary shop was the primary supplier. The records show that the Marshalls furnished 20 medicine chests to the following battalions from February to June:

February 1776: Pennsylvania 1st Battalion March 1776: Jersey 3d Battalion April 1776: Pennsylvania 2d, 3d, and 6th Battalions May 1776: Six Virginia battalions Jersey 1st Battalion Pennsylvania 4th Battalion June 1776: Six North Carolina battalions Virginia 9th Battalion

The exact contents of each chest are indicated in the Marshalls' waste book. The chest furnished to the Pennsylvania 4th Battalion is an example of the ones supplied by Congress in the spring of 1776; its contents are listed on page 130.

Congress intended that all chests be substantially the same, but the amount of medicines demanded exceeded the stock of even the largest druggists. The first several chests were complete as ordered, but as early as April the Marshalls were running out of certain drugs. Gum opium and nitre "found by Congress" was included in the chest for the Pennsylvania 4th Battalion, and by May 11 the Marshalls were out of Peruvian bark, ipecac, cream of tartar, gum camphor, and red precipitate of mercury. The chests outfitted after June 1 also failed to include Epsom salts, and the last chest lacked jalap as well. Thus the majority of the battalions traveling north were already without some of the most necessary drugs in their chests. Blithely their medical officers thought they could obtain the missing drugs when they arrived at the general hospital.

Treason, Poison, and Siege

Continue reading Drug Supplies in the American Revolution free in the Wunder reader →