Pills and profits : the selling of medicines since 1870 : an exhibition at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine / Ken Arnold, Tilli Tansey.
- Arnold, Ken, 1960-
- Date:
- 1994
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: Pills and profits : the selling of medicines since 1870 : an exhibition at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine / Ken Arnold, Tilli Tansey. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND PROMOTION: BURROUGHS WELLCOME & CO. On 27 September 1880, Burroughs Wellcome & Co. was founded with a deed of partnership between the two American pharmacists who gave it their names. The type of 'compressed medicines' that they manufactured had initially been developed in the USA a decade earlier. In 1889 the com- pany's factory was moved to Dartford, on a site previously occupied by Phoenix Paper Mills. Burroughs Wellcome & Co. made early use of mechanized industrial techniques like conveyor belts. In the first decade of the twentieth century the factory was enlarged, and new analytical laboratories for testing raw materials were added to the works. In general, an important element quickly introduced into much of the manufacturing process was a range of analytical controls — a total of seven were operated from research laboratories on site. Effective publicity was just as vital a part of the company's success as innovative production techniques. Prodigious amounts of effort and money were spent on marketing the company through advertising, exhibitions and promotional products. It was not uncommon for up to 20 pages of advertis- ing to be placed in a single issue of a trade journal. Burroughs Wellcome & Co. was one of the first pharmaceutical firms to become science based. Not surprisingly, their marketing strategy placed a special emphasis on the role of scientific progress. Though separated from the commercial enterprise, the medical museums and research laboratories inevitably contributed to this carefully crafted image. Burroughs Wellcome & Co. is an early example of a business successfully 'selling science'. Exhibits V.l 'Hazeline Snow' shop counter or window display, [191—?] Shop window furniture that carried eye-catching images and brand names in large print were used by pharmacists with increasing frequency from the late nineteenth century. Many products carried a pithy slogan; that for 'Hazeline Snow' was It melts on the skin making it soft and white. Sold into the 1980s, the great popularity of the product](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20456517_0051.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
