My late brother Gerald and I were reminiscing about our mom’s mother, Grandma Julia Armstrong, who lived just about a mile east of Lula. Grandma would get up some mornings — early and vanish out and across the prairie and woods around the home place. I took little interest in the fact that she would return with roots and plants no one had ever heard of. She would mess around, grind up, boil or do whatever with them and make “medicine” out of them and even know later what they were good for.

I didn’t have the respect I should have had since I would, later on in life, become a pharmacist. To this day I don’t know exactly what she did. I can only guess — that this was, and is, a dying art. Gerald, more than once got on to me for not having written any of this down and even worse, not knowing more about what they did. But that was just the way it was.

Time passed and one day I got an email from an old ship mate on the East Coast, Harry Shelton. We both served on the USS Johnny Hutchins — a good little Destroyer Escort out on the Atlantic. Harry must have imagined my conversation with my brother as his letter (email) tied right in with this. Harry wrote about old medicines and stuff. He said singers and preachers had a lot of help from a product called “Drages” Antiseptique which proclaimed on its label to provide for “a maximum performance” and was great to smooth the voice. Drage’s contained generous amounts of cocaine and may be why preachers preached so long in the 1800s and if your own preacher is “running over” you may need to check his cough syrup too.

Another miracle drug, Mariana Wine, hit its peak in 1875 as the most famous Coca Wine of its time. Pope Leo XIII always carried a bottle of Mariana and eventually awarded its maker, Angelo Mariana, with a Vatican Gold Medal. If the Pope says it’s good, it must be good, but that was back in the day before the Pope was declared to be “infallible.” There was many other Coca Wines but one manufactured by the Medcalf Drug Company is a real standout, declaring that it not only had medicinal properties, it would flat out make you happier — a condition America’s most cheerful generation was not hesitant to drink to.

Between 1890 and 1910 Bayer sold over the counter (OTC) Heroin. It was labeled as a nonaddictive substitute for Morphine. It was also used to treat children with strong cough. I’m not sure what strong cough is but I might know it if I heard it. I’ve had customers who would develop “Strong-cough” for the privilege of sipping heroin.

Thank goodness (tongue in cheek) these addictive medications have been pulled from the marketplace. When I sold my pharmacy in 1996, I had a full bottle of sealed up Laudanum. I sent it to the DEA as per instructions. (I should have just kept it.) After I had been in Allen just a few days I asked a lady whey she was taking Eskatrol (SKF’s amphetamine) every morning. “Well, you see, I take Eskabarb each night for rest. I am a working woman and I need help getting awake.” She did confess her relief in knowing the drugs were not habit forming.

My Allen customers rubbed Tincture of Opium (Paregoric) on their teething babies’ gums. The babies were happy about that. And tense parents suffering from diarrhea could take a tasty snort and be healed. Vanilla extract was widely available in grocery stores (and my pharmacy). Not too sure what all it was good for but my grocer friend across the street said one of my customers’ flocculation’s had his supermarket smelling like vanilla wafers. I sold a lot of rubbing alcohol and Parke Davis’s Lavacol was my community’s favorite. Our cheap stuff made them sick, they said. My Parke-Davis Rep said theirs was just Pure-D-OEthel Alcohol.

Allen had been an oil field town during the 1920s and 30’s. An enterprising pharmacist named Otto hooked up a 55-gallon barrel of “Ginger” to his (fountain’s) middle faucet. You could get a pretty good Coke at his pharmacy and at a discount. One little squirt could help change your day.

If you don’t want a bottle to bring you happiness, you might try going to church next Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com