Pharmaceutical history and its sources in the Wellcome collections. IV. Tiles, pills and boluses.

THIS NOTE is prompted by the acquisition by the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine of an exceedingly rare pharmaceutical tile, decorated with the Arms of the Society of Apothecaries (see fig. 1), and also because of growing interest in tiles bearing the Arms of the Society, an interest that has raised more questions than it has answered.' One particular point at issue is whether the tiles were primarily decorative, being in the nature of shop signs. This is plausible, though because of small lattice shop windows they were not especially appropriate for window display.2 Alternatively, were the tiles designed for preparing small quantities of pharmaceutical preparations, and also adding to the shop's decor when not in use? Thus, like much pharmaceutical ware, they combined elegance and function, though their precise use is not absolutely clear. While the disappearance of the decorated tiles was part of the demise of all tinglazed ware in the second half of the eighteenth century, it also paralleled rising interest in the pill machine. The tiles were commonly called 'pill tiles', as they undoubtedly provided a convenient place on which to cut an elongated 'pipe' of pill mass into pieces of equal size for rolling into pills.3 (Some undecorated tinglazed tiles, with a scale ruled into fifteen parts to aid division of the pipe into equal pieces, were in fact common in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.)4 However, the eighteenth-century tile (decorated or not) undoubtedly had other uses, not least the preparation of boluses: in 1778 William Brown ordered '6 dozen delft ware tiles for mixing bolus, etc. on'.5 Bolus knives (spatulas) were also common at the time.6 1 For recent surveys see J. K. Crellin, A Catalogue of the English and Dutch Collections in the Museum ofthe Wellcome Institute of the Histor'y ofMedicine, London, 1969, pp. 143-50; L. G. Matthews, 'Apothecaries' pill tiles', Trans. Eng. Cer. Circle, 1970, 7, 200-9; E. W. Stieb, 'Rare tile in Drake Collection', Pharmacy in History, 1970, 12, 18-20. 'In Britain, larger panes, such as 16 x 12 inches did not come into fashion until around midcentury. Dorothy Davis (A History of Shopping, London, 1966, p. 191) has summard the position as follows: 'The politer trades were now beginning to take advantage of the new plate glass for windows in place of the ring or bottle glass. Panes of twelve inches by sixteen enabled the passer-by to see into the shop and we ... begin to hear of the ambitious shopkeepers who encroached upon the footways with bow windows'. ' The pipe was a long length of compounded pill mass. Once cut, the individual portions were rolled into round pills, generally by a boxwood roller (cf. fn. 7). ' Cf., for instance, references in G. Griffenhagen, 'Tools of the apothecary, 5. pill tiles and spatulas' in Tools ofthe Apothecary, Washington, D.C., 1957. Griffenhagen also mentions plain, graduated, tin-glazed tiles. Only one tin-glazed tile bearing the Arms of the Society of Apothecaries and graduations has been recorded, but the graduations have been added by the user after purchase. See R. Ironside, A Collection of Apothecaries' Tiles ('Pill Slabs') at Apothecaries Hall, Blackfriars Lane, London, E.C.4, T. 3. Quoted in Griffenhagen, op. cit., fn. 4. 'Cf. ibid., and catalogue of Samuel Laundy, Surgeon's Instrument Maker, and Cutler in General, n.d., c. 1770. This also lists (p. 7) a knife for an electuary. That the bolus knife was in wide use around 1820 is indicated by William Chamberlaine's remarks about obtaining egg yolk for spermaceti mixture among slip-shod conditions: Over this wash-hand basin, with dirty water in it, you break your egg.-Through want of proper