Dr. Shaw’s Apothecary
The “crown jewel” of the house is Doctor Shaw’s medical office. Doctor Shaw apprenticed to Dr. Peter Bryant in neighboring Cummington. Bryant named his famous son after the renowned Scottish physician Dr. William Cullen. William Cullen Bryant pursued a career in literature, journalism and politics, while Samuel Shaw, from nearby Plainfield became a kind of surrogate son eventually marrying Dr. Bryant’s daughter Sarah. Dr. Shaw inherited Bryant’s practice and his early medical books – many of which are preserved and displayed in the house.
“The doctor’s office at the Shaw-Hudson House is one of the most important survivals from the dawn of the modern medical profession. There are a handful of doctor’s offices and apothecary shops preserved as museums in various parts of the country. NONE are earlier, better-documented or provide a more authentic and compelling glimpse of the origins of American medicine. It is a NATIONAL TREASURE – the best thing of thing of its type in the United States – as important as any historic site in Deerfield, Salem or Boston.” – William Hosley
This apothecary in Dr. Samuel Shaw’s office remains as he left it in the mid-19th century, complete with all the instruments, prescription recipe, powders, pill boxes, and medicines of the period.
The following are excerpts from The Romances of a Country Doctor, a paper read at the annual meeting of the Northampton Historical Society at the Unitarian Church, Northampton, on October 7, 1947 and Plain Tales from Plainfield or The Way Things Used to Be, 1962, both by Clara Elizabeth Hudson. Ms. Hudson was a granddaughter of Dr. Samuel Shaw and the last surviving relative to live in the Shaw Hudson House.
Click on photographs to enlarge and blue hyperlinks to learn more.
“The large drug case had an upper section in which were many small, blueish, hand-blown bottles closed by corks. Glass jars with brass caps bore labels, such as quinine, papaver somniferum (the poppy producing sleep, or opium), and asafoeteda. Two doors with small panes of glass kept the contents of the shelves clean. Powders were measured by weights on balancing scales on which I often weighed the ingredients for Seidlitz powders. In the dozen or more small deep drawers below, each with a little brass knob, were, separately, corks, wooden and pasteboard pill hexes, string, etc. In larger drawers were packages of such things as Glauber salts, as well as many instruments. The one for extracting teeth had prongs to grip a tooth and a corkscrew-like handle with which to tighten the prongs before pulling.
In my childhood there was still for some years, out in front at the side of the road, a stone hitching post with an iron ring in the top, to which patients could tie their horses – a less expensive method than the present parking meter.“
Below is a gallery of just some of the many historical medical devices, medicines, and ephemeral found in Dr. Shaw’s apothecary.
To learn more about 18th and 19th century medicine read Medicine in New England 1790 -1840 by Barnes Riznik from Old Sturbridge Village
This slide presentation was compiled and produced by Robert McCarthy, Ph.D., Professor and Dean Emeritus at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy for his class “The History of American Pharmacy.”
