Into the 1970s, Jewish-owned pharmacies where families worked together and lived above their shops dotted cities and small towns alike. The corner drugstore was a fixture in its neighborhood, and the pharmacist was a trusted source for everyday health advice.
This section explores how people of different communities met and connected in the corner drugstore.
Baltimore pharmacist M.L. Cooper was not only inventive with his window displays [link: /], he was also a literal inventor. In October 1950 he was granted US Patent No. 2,525,867 for his “integral grinding and mixing mortar with integral pestle,” a design he had filed four years earlier. As always, the patent language is detailed […]
Blood is the topic of this M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window display! Posted around the window are several facts about blood and its purpose in the body, including that the heart beats about 100,800 times a day. That’s about 35 million times in a year, and up to 2.5 billion times in a lifetime!! […]
This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window display lists pharmaceutical drugs that are produced from animals, vegetables, and minerals. This display was in honor of National Pharmacy Week. Test Your Knowledge with this Animal/Vegetable/Mineral Quiz: http://blog.oup.com/2015/08/animal-vegetable-mineral/
In this window of M. L. Cooper Pharmacy, medical remedies of the past and present were compared. Did you know that people used to treat the influenza virus with aspirin? It wasn’t until 1963 that research began to show that taking aspirin while coping with a viral disease could actually be harmful. Adding aspirin to […]
This M.L. Cooper Pharmacy window display draws comparisons between pharmaceutical advances in the past, and at the current time of the window display. One panel refers to the transition from powders to tablets. Medicinal pills have been in existence for thousands of years- they were used in ancient Greece. Making the original pills required moisture, […]
This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window display revolves around digitalis, a medicine made from a plant commonly referred to as foxgloves. It can be used to treat many hearts conditions. Digitalis was first introduced into the medical world in 1775. Further Reading: An Account of the Foxglove, and some of its medical uses with […]
This display in M. L. Cooper Pharmacy’s window advertises that the store carries Parke-Davis products. Parke-Davis was founded in 1866, and in 2000 it became a subsidiary of Pfizer, a well-known pharmaceutical company. Parke-Davis and Company is credited with building the first modern pharmaceutical laboratory and developing the first systematic methods of performing clinical trials of […]
This window display at M. L. Cooper Pharmacy takes us to the Animal Kingdom. Listed in the window are several drugs with names reminiscent of animals. For example, catmint is a medicinal plant that can be used to treat the common cold!
This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window display focuses on the medical uses of ergot, a type of fungus found in rye and similar plants. Ergot-derived drugs are generally referred to as ergot alkaloids, which can help in the treatment of migraines. Ergot fungus is poisonous if consumed! Ergot was used by midwives and doctors in the […]
In addition to the rubber Tablet Mould, the Pharmacy Cabinet contains several other pill-making paraphernalia, including a wood and brass pill machine from the mid 19th century, on loan from our friends at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. We’ve done our best to describe how these items actually worked, but words can only take you so […]
This display window at M. L. Cooper Pharmacy professes the reliability of pharmacies as part of National Pharmacy Week. At the time this window was displayed, 14 million prescriptions had been filled in the United States. In 2015 alone, 4.17 billion prescriptions were filled in the United States.
One of the items in our Pharmacy Cabinet is a small black pill press, a simple two-piece machine for turning medicinal paste into pills. At first, we cataloged this artifact as “black plastic, mid 20th century.” There were no decorative touches, or conveniently printed patent dates, that would give an immediate clue that this a […]
This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window breaks down the composition of the human body by element. The body is made up of six main elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, calcium, nitrogen, and phosphorous. Oxygen is the most abundant element in the human body, making up about 60% of the body. How the body uses oxygen: https://patienteducation.osumc.edu/Documents/how-body-oxygen.pdf Make […]
Featured in the Pharmacy section is a green metal standing scale. Unlike the other table-top scales shown in this room, this was not for measuring the pharmacist’s medications and pills; instead, this one was meant for the customers’ use, to check their own weight. Around the turn of the last century, penny scales allowed the […]
This M. L. Cooper window display features 16 different cures for medical problems. You may be saying to yourself, “These are so outlandish! There’s no way people actually thought these cures would work, right?!” Wrong! In the 17th century, it was thought that applying bear grease to the head would assist in hair growth. There […]
This window display at M. L. Cooper pharmacy features the history of pharmacy through pictures. The picture in the top left of the window is a painting of Galen, born in Rome in 130 A.D. He taught Pharmacy and Medicine, and he even invented cold cream! The painting in the top right depicts ancient Chinese […]
Does your medicine cabinet look like the one on the left, or on the right? This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window display shows the proper way to organize your medicine cabinet, and offers some little-known facts about items commonly found in a medicine cabinet. Messy medicine cabinet? Never fear! Here are some organizational tips to […]
This window display from M. L. Cooper Pharmacy educates the public about legend drugs. Legend drugs, or prescription drugs, always bear the label, “Caution: Federal Law Prohibits Dispensing Without Prescription.” In 1938, the realization that some drugs were only safe to take under medical supervision led to the nationwide implementation of legend drugs. By 1941, […]
Featured in the Pharmacy section is a wonderful handmade soda fountain sign, advertising Hendler’s ice cream. This recent (and most fortuitous) donation came from Sollod’s Pharmacy in South Baltimore. In 1942, Sylvan J. Sollod (1911-2003), known as “Doc,” purchased Marmor’s Pharmacy at Fort Avenue and Webster Street. The son of Polish immigrants David and Fannie […]
This display in the M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window promises reliable and quality service from their practice. On display during National Pharmacy Week, this window encourages the community to trust their neighborhood pharmacist.
Shown here is a window display at M.L. Cooper Pharmacy in October 1955. Though the display depicts some rather wild medical practices from the seventeenth century, there were still a number of significant medical advances that were made in the 1600s! For example, the microscope was invented at the turn of the century, and throughout […]
Though only a few pharmacies and drug stores are featured in the exhibit, neighborhood drug stores are such an important part of the community that we have many photos in our collections: all taken, saved, and donated by owners, employees, and customers. Here are a few more local pharmacies from the Baltimore area!
This pharmacy window displays the milestones in pharmaceuticals throughout history, up until the display was created in 1952. In addition, it also lists a number of Colleges of Pharmacy. This window was displayed for National Pharmacy Week in 1952. National Pharmacy Week was first observed in 1925, and it continues to be held in October, […]
Displayed in this M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window is a declaration of pharmacists’ dedication to the fight against cancer and urges people to “strike at cancer’s danger signals before cancer strikes at you.” American Jewish pharmacist Alfred Gilman was one of the pioneers in developing chemotherapy treatment for those suffering from cancer. The Yale graduate […]
This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window explains the evolution of throat lozenges from a formula created in 1677 to the penicillin lozenge created in 1948. Throat lozenges, sometimes called cough drops, are generally used to soothe sore throats and ease coughs. This display lists the ingredients used in both types of lozenges. Did you know […]
This M. L. Cooper Pharmacy window details the several types of B vitamins and their functions in the human body. Although it says that the nutritional function of pyridoxine, or B6, is unknown, recently more information has come to light. We now know that B6 is necessary in brain development, creating serotonin and melatonin, and […]
One person who made a major contribution to the understanding of modern medicine is a man named Garcia De Orta. I am sure that most people reading this have never even heard his name. He is famous for writing Coloquios dos simples e drogas e cousas medicinais da India (Conversations on the simples, drugs and […]