This collection of retail pharmaceutical business records does not fully document individual firms. Rather, these records offer unique documentation collected by the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy for the study of therapeutics. With this collection, one can examine trands with regard to the types and frequency of medicine actually administered from the pre-Civil War era to the turn of the twentieth century. Though geographic diversity is limited, the data does permit comparisons between regions and between cities and small towns. Unfortunately, the prescription books only document the specific formulation, the prescribing doctor, and the patient, not the symptoms being treated.
There is one exception to this form of documentation. That is a virtually complete set of financial records (as well as the prescription books) for the Madison firm Dunning & Summer. Because of the long time period documented, one can trace the evolution of the firm from a general mercantile firm to its later specialization in pharmacy.
A significant portion of the collection is the records from the New York firm of Ewen McIntyre & Son. These prescription records were donated to the AIHP by the Columbia University School of Pharmacy to whom they had apparently been donated by Ewen McIntyre, Jr., during the 1920s. They now comprise one of the longest known runs of such records, although the run of volumes (1859-1895) contains numerous gaps. The vast majority of the volumes are unidentified, but the sequence of the prescription numbers and other internal evidence suggests their provenance. It is not known, however, to which branch of the firm they belong.
The records are arranged alphabetically by state and by city and then by prescription number, which is a rough chronological sequence. In the case of Dunning & Summer for which there are financial records as well as prescription books, the financial records have been grouped by type. Because of their deteriorating condition, many of the prescription books have been microfilmed and the originals destroyed. Because of the large size of the original volumes filming was done without the use of a counter.
