Manuscripts
A bound volume containing over 2,400 manuscript prescriptions filled by an unidentified San Francisco pharmacy. The dated and numbered prescriptions are mounted on both sides of each page, with approximately seven to nine prescriptions per page; the prescriptions are written on various billheads or plain paper issued by many different physicians. The prescriptions provide information about the doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, druggists, and patients in San Francisco during the latter part of the 19th century; among the drugs prescribed are cocaine, morphine, opium, and literally hundreds of other compounds and simples. There are a number of prescriptions written by women doctors, including Isabel Lowry, who studied medicine in Paris with her twin sister Agnes, and Tey Watanabe, who was a graduate of the University of California, San Francisco, the first Japanese physician licensed in California. With contemporary half morocco and cloth covered boards; the pages in the volume are heavily foxed with considerable oxidation on acid paper. The spine has perished, the rear cover is detached, and the front cover is mostly detached; the pages, however, remain bound and can be easily turned, although the binding is tight in several places.
mssHM 84058
