The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-07-28
JIM CROW SODA FOUNTAIN.
How a Pioneer Druggist Tried to Ap-
 pease the Negroes.

How a Pioneer Druggist Tried to Ap-
 pease the Negroes.
 A "Jim-crow' soda-water fountain. with one spout for colored people and another for whites, is an oddity brought to light by an old Chicago druggist, who has delyed into the local history of his trade. Sea serpent oir' and ''ca- tarrh snuff'' are some of the strange remedies that were dispensed across the counter next it in the early ffties, and divers and other unfamiliar names and practices apparently belong to the men who sold drugs in the small busi- ness on ''primevaT' Lake street.
 The ''black and white" soda fountain was one of the earliest installed in Chicago and had prominent place in J. H. Reed & Col store, which an ad- vertisement of the day described as 2 splendid place of business, fitted up in the most magnificent style, with mo- saic floors, Italian marble counters, en- bellish with statuary. urns, vases, etc" The fountain was less elaborate, con- sisting at first of a single curved spout coming up through the counter, with coolers and tanks concealed beneath. The list of hayoring syrups was not long, but was sufficiently attractive to make a contemporary refer to the store as rendezvous for all the fashiona- bleS.'
 Therefore there was a great outcry when 6 big negro strolled into the shop one busy afternoon and demanded q glass of ''sweetened soda water" The clerk refused to serve q colored man. The negro persisted. The clerk again stoutly refused. Women customers fled out of the store in fear of fight, but finally the thirsty visitor departed, vowing that he would institute boy colt.
 From that time on, says a pioneer druggist, the store was tabooed by the colored population and their sympa- thizers. The firm tried to make mat ters right by putting in another arm on the other side of the counter for color ed people only but the scheme failed to work. and the additional space was finally fitted up for women and child ren. Soda water was first advertised for sale in Chicago in 1S39.
 Was sea serpent oil" the same as the modern cod liver oil? This question has long been debated by local drug gists for 1t is known that the first named article was once held in great esteem here as a cure for cough, and that a great deal of it was sold Rat tIesnake oil' was another specific which came by the barrel and was de- voutly believed in by the early settlers as a cure for the pangs of rheumatism.
 Calomel was assimilated by these hardy folk in astounding quantities in spite of the fact that the newspapers of 1890 record several deaths caused by corrosive left in the drug through defective manufacture An amusing account is given of the introduction to Chicago of several familiar remedies in diary kept by Henry Bowman, a drug clerk, from 1S45 to 1S4S.
 While I was in Boyee's store.' runs the diary, fglycerine made it's first ap- pearance and my employer sent to New York for one ounce of it to cure deaf ness. Chloroform was also then first manufactured, and we put upon the To- cal market a dozen or so ounces of it in one ounce vials. Each vial was half full of waterto keep the stuff down, I suppose. In runmaging through the store one day found the first, porous plaster, and when asked MT. Boyce what 1t was he. said it was meant for d sign board. We put up a great many pills, and as there was then no machine for their manufacture it was pretty slow work. For some time used to put one of the pills in the palm of my hand and roll it around with my right forefinger. A year or so afterward a man taught me how to roll pill be- tween each thumb and foref1nger so as to make them with surprising rapid ity."
 The public desire for a "wide-open" town is said by druggists to have been the main reason for the defeat of Philo Carpenter, the pioneer pharna- cist, for a position upon the first board of trustees for the infant village of Chicago. At this election, held in Au- gust, 1923, there were found to be just twenty-eight qualified voters, of whom thirteen were candidates for the five vacancies MT. Carpenter received but one vote because 1t was generally be- lieved that his scruples against the sale and use of alcoholic beverages might cause "a certain awkwardness If he were a member of the governing body of a younger and flourishing city" He had first come into prominence at the mo- ment of his arrival in town during the scrourge of the year by rescuing from premature burial of a young man sup- posed to be dead
 Herbs and roots were most popular remedies In early Chicago, according to advertisements of the time, although patent medicines and vapor-bath treat ments were by no means unknown. With freight rates to New York s1.50 per hundredweight famine prices for medical supplies often prevailed. Ker- osence, a name which originated as a trademark, was carried in all drug stores and sold at $1.50 a gallon. Crude petroleum, which was used as a, medi- cine was almost as costly. It was known as Seneca oil from the fact that it was originally gathered by the Sene- ca Indians form the surface of rivers in the oil-bearing districts. Blankets were spread on the streams and the oil thus absorbed was wrung out and bar tered to the white men. During the Civil War oil of turpentine sold in Chi na rro ot Qd o IInY, oei,, ...