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| Click on image to meet your chemist. |
Well, let’s see what we have here. It’s a simple enough scene. Just a glimpse into a Victorian chemist’s shop. Our friendly local apothecary is receiving an elderly customer. She’s quite unhappy about something. What’s she saying? Let’s find out.
An advertisement for “Baldspots Porous Plaster” hangs prominently on the shelves. Perhaps this woman has purchased some of this. Yes, yes she has. Is she happy? No.
The image is captioned:
MEDICAL ADVICE
ENRAGED PATRON—“Take back this
porous plaster. You don’t suppose that
I’m going to pay you twenty-five cents
for a plaster that is all full of moth
holes.”
Poor woman. It seems she’s misunderstood what a porous plaster is. I’m sure pharmacists around the world must deal with this sort of silly customer complaint every day—still. How has our friendly neighborhood chemist decided to deal with this enraged patron?
He’s reaching for a large can of morphine. With a sly look on his face, we can see that he clearly intends to poison her with opiates.
That seems reasonable.
This scene of puppet-headed people comes to us, we learn, from “’Judge,’ By Permission.”
So, what does this trade card advertise? Porous Plasters? Umbrellas? Morphine?
None of the above.
ARIOSA COFFEE.
Yes, that’s right. It’s another ad for Ariosa Coffee.
On the reverse, we see the center of manufacture for Arbuckles’ Stores—the producers of Ariosa Coffee.
This is, it appears, the eighty-seventh card of a series.
We are informed that:
839,972 POUNDS ROASTED DAILY
THE ENORMOUS CONSUMPTION OF THIS POPULAR BRAND GIVES PROOF THAT FOR STRENGTH, PURITY AND DELCIOUSNESS IT HAS NO EQUAL.
I wonder what that has to do with morphine-prescribing chemists.
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