surfaceone
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Hey Mike,
I always associated those arched shoulders and the lip treatment with the Nineties, too.
"DR. WILLIAM C. ALPERS.
A Biographical Sketch—Born in Germany and Served in the Franco-Prussian War—His Business Career—His Many and Varied Pharmaceutical Activities—Pictures of His Pharmacy.
By HARRY B. MASON.
Dr. W. C. Alpers is one of the pharmaceutical forces in this country—there is no doubt about it. In New York City and State, in New Jersey, and in the nation at large through his writings and his work in the A. Ph. A., he has wielded and continues to wield an influence exerted always on behalf of better pharmacy and purer pharmacy and pharmacy that shall earn and retain the respect of the community. But though a man of ideals, Dr. Alpers is no sterile visionary unable to cope with the world and put his notions into successful practice. He is a "practical idealist." His business life has been a financial success, and so far as practicable it has realized the professional aspirations which he has preached in season and out of season with the zeal that is born of faith and conviction.
EARLY LIFE IN GERMANY.
His early life is an interesting one. Born in 1851 in Harburg, Germany, and losing his parents in 1863, he went to Hanover and was educated in the "gymnasium" (or German high school), following which two years of special work were done in mathematics and chemistry at the Hanover School of Technology. In 1870 he enlisted in the German army, as every German youth is expected to do for a year or more, and he was fortunate or unfortunate enough to serve in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, suffering two wounds and participating in the famous siege of Metz and in seven of the large battles of the war.
Completing his prescribed period of service in the German army, and being honorably discharged the next year with the rank of lieutenant, Alpers resumed his education by attending the University of Gottingen until the October of 1872. He came then to the United States, ambitious to make teaching and original scientific investigation his lifework. The next two years were hard ones. German ideals did not thrive in practical American soil. He could not connect himself as he desired, and .after a period of struggle and privation he had to be content with a small position as teacher of mathematics, French, and German in a private school in New York.
ENTRANCE INTO PHARMACY.
Up to this time, observe, there had been no thought of pharmacy. But pharmacy was to gain what general science and scholastics were to lose. Having moved to Bayonne, N. J., at that time a small suburb of New York, he conceived the idea of opening a pharmacy. The Standard Oil Co. was then erecting a large distillery in Bayonne and thus bringing thousands of men to live there. A positive demand for a drug store was felt, and the opportunity to engage in business was tempting. Alpers borrowed $250 and opened a small store, 12x20 feet, in a wooden shanty. He kept up his teaching; he placed a manager in the store; he took the first year's work in the New York College of Pharmacy, and passed the State Board examination in New
Dr. Alpers's present pharmacy in the Hotel Imperial Bulldtag at the corner of Broadway and 31st Street. There is an entrance farther along on 31st Street which does not show in this engraving.
Jersey. Then he let the manager go, gave up teaching, went into the store himself, worked hard, and in a short time paid off the indebtedness and moved into a larger store in a better neighborhood.
A GREAT STUDENT.
Forced into pharmacy, as it were, he devoted himself to the study of this art with great assiduity. A scientist in method, a poet in spirit, every individual drug had an interesting life history for him, and he could sit in his little shop when business was under the title of "The Pharmacist at Work." With a "proprietor," a "senior," and a "junior" as characters, and with a running dialogue between them, this book proved how interesting such ordinarily dry subjects as botany and pharmaceutical chemistry could be made, and to Dr. Alpers at least some of the credit must be given for the change which has been witnessed of recent years in the method of teaching these and allied branches in our colleges of pharmacy.
Meanwhile Dr. Alpers had joined the New Jessey Pharmaceutical Association, and later on the American Pharmaceutical Association. From the first his influence was felt in both bodies. He became president of the former, and he has held too many offices in the latter to be enumerated in this place. In 1894 he was appointed a member of the State Board of Pharmacy. Steadily gaining more and more prominence, and never tiring of urging professional and scientific advance for pharmacy, he was highly honored in 189C by being selected as the manager for the splendid retail pharmacy which Merck & Co. had decided to establish in connection with their laboratory at University Place in New York.
MANAGER OF THE MERCK PHARMACY.
In scientific equipment, in professional aim, in completeness and preparedness for every purely pharmaceutical service, and in beauty and dignity of embellishment, this truly ideal pharmacy has never been equaled in this country or abroad. It failed and was abandoned because it did not receive the expected measure of support from pharmacists, and because the latter protested against a manufacturing house entering the retail field and competing with the retailers upon whom it depended for its sustenance. Merck & Co. declared that they had meant to cooperate instead of compete with retailers, but when they found that the New York druggists couldn't see it that way they expressed their willingness to close the establishment.
GRANTED THE "SC.D." DEGREE BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.
It is significant of Dr. Alpers's high realization of the need for thorough educational preparation in pharmacy that he deemed his own admirable training insufficient when he became manager of the Merck pharmacy. Though 45 years old, he at once
This Illustration shows the right aide of the pharmacy. Between the cashier's desk and the front window is a small cigar case. Dr. Alpers's son, Otto, is seen standing in this Tiew.
began a special chemical course at the University of New York, and gave such time as he could to it for two or three years. Completing the work in 1899, he was given the degree of Doctor of Science (in chemistry), his thesis being on Aralia nudicaulis. His early bent for research work has, indeed, expressed itself at various times, and in addition to the very complete study of Aralia nudicaulis he has discovered several oils and alkaloids. The
Dr. Alpers himself may be seen Id this view seated in his office at the end of the pharmacy. The mirror which constitutes the rear wall of the room is not suggested in the picture: the reflection was so troublesome that it was necessary, In order to get a satisfactory photograph, to hang up a cloth in front of the glass.
tical idealist. At the two interesting sessions last year at Atlantic City of the Section on Practical Pharmacy and Dispensing of the A. Ph. A., no one showed better grasp than he of the innumerable compounding and manufacturing points that arise daily at the prescription desk, and it is not without significance that he was afterwards elected chairman of the Section for the ensuing* year. He had served as chairman of the Scientific Section a number of years before, and he is equally interested and equally at home in both fields.
HIS PRESENT PHARMACY.
When the Merck pharmacy was abandoned in 1899, Dr. Alpers bought many of the fixtures and opened a professional pharmacy in the Imperial Hotel Building at 31st Street, just one door off Broadway. He secured a large following among the New York physicians and did a nice prescription business; but ere long the practical side of this idealist asserted itself, and he enlarged his store by renting the corner on Broadway and throwing the two places into one. This meant a greatly increased rent and a large measure of transient trade, two factors which compelled him to depart slightly
from his ultra-professional attitude and put in a few of the side lines which are all but universal accompaniments of the modern pharmacy.
But, even so, the professional atmosphere and spirit of the place has scarcely been affected. The "twentieth-century" soda fountain, costing about $8000, is so handsome a piece of architecture that it is an addition to the beauty of the place, and there are no seats in front of it and no "free lunch" features in evidence. It is at the left as you enter from Broadway. At the right is a small cigar case; beyond is a limited stock of Huyler's candy; and down farther on the right side is a select stock of the toilet goods which from custom belong legitimately to the pharmacist's stock. This is all— everything else has to do with the professions of pharmacy, medicine, and surgery.
The fixtures are all of mahogany; the floor is of handsome tile; there are no placards about; there are no counter displays; here and there is a large palm or fern on a pedestal; at the end of the room great mirrors set in the wall give the store the appearance of twice its real depth; and the place has the atmosphere not only of science and profession,
At the end of the store is an L used for dispensing and compounding, only a portion of which is shown in this illustration. Note the two rows of bottles on top of the wall fixtures: these may be seen throughout the pharmacy, and the idea is an excellent one.
but of art and beauty as well. You can go through a rear door and enter the foyer of the Hotel Imperial—one of the handsomest in New York City and furnished in Oriental splendor. Here prescription patients, if compelled to wait some time for their medicines, may go and rest themselves in luxurious davenports or great armchairs, and delight their eyes with the wealth of painting, statuary, and decoration which is all about them.
This snapshot of Dr. Alpers and his two daughters, the Misses Helen and Clara, was taken at the meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association last year in Atlantic City.
country for the treatment of diseases of the lungs. Miss Helen Alpers, the Doctor's youngest daughter, is the capable manager of this laboratory.
LOCAL AND NATIONAL ACTIVITIES.
Dr. Alpers is of course prominent in the pharmaceutical life of the city. He is president of the Manhattan Pharmaceutical Association, a member of the Executive Committee of the Metropolitan Association of Retail Druggists (the local branch of the N. A. R. D.), and a trustee of the New York College of Pharmacy. For the last year or two he has been heading a movement to have pharmacy represented in some way upon the New York Board of Health, which at times has given a few bad halfhours to the pharmacists of the city. Recently this attempt has successfully resulted in the formation by Commissioner of Health Darlington of an auxiliary or advisory board of five pharmacists with which the Commissioner will consult in all matters affecting the pharmaceutical interests of the city.
His work in the American Pharmaceutical Association, already referred to in some of its aspects, is too well known to need explanation. He is a strong, virile, able, dignified figure in the association. In several movements in which the A. Ph. A. has played a strong part Dr. Alpers has been an
active participant. He was one of the first to suggest that compulsory graduation should be established in pharmacy. At the White Mountain meeting in 1892 he offered a resolution embodying this idea, and he was considered several kinds of a crank for suggesting so visionary and impracticable a step. He has so often been called a crank, indeed, that he would be lonely without an occasional compliment of this kind; and he gets his revenge by pointing to the fact that the graduation requirement, the Board of Health representation, and several other "wild schemes" of his have all been realized.
HIS VISIT TO PRINCE HENRY.
All this is more or less matter of common knowledge, but it is not so well known among pharmacists that Dr. Alpers is a prominent figure in the German-American life of New York. He contributes often to the German periodicals. In the past he has written considerable German poetry, and has even been the author of one or two books of German verse. Before one German society in particular he has often lectured and otherwise been active. This, the Society of Old German Students, consists entirely of former students of the German Universities, and counts among its members such prominent men as Professor Eliot of Harvard, Dr. Munsterberg, Dr. Chandler, and Professors Hallock and Carpenter of Columbia. Last summer this organization, having made Prince Henry an honorary member, sent Dr. Alpers and Dr. Carl Beck over to Germany to notify the Prince with suitable respect of the action taken. They were received with marked courtesy, entertained all day at the Prince's castle in Northern Germany, and given a sail in the royal yacht.
HOME LIFE.
Just a word may be said in conclusion of the Doctor's home life. It is rather an interesting fact that he lives in a house on West 56th Street owned by Ewen Mclntyre, the venerable New York apothecary. The old Mclntyre pharmacy, now conducted by the sons, is a few doors distant on the corner of 56th Street and Sixth Avenue. The location is a fine one, and Central Park, which begins at 59th Street, is only three blocks distant. The Doctor's wife, a great favorite at the annual meetings of the A. Ph. A., died under sad conditions shortly after returning from the Mackinac meeting in 1904, and his two daughters, the Misses Clara and Helen, preside over the house with dignity andchloric acid in the fourth, concentrated ammonia in the third, the second was left empty so that the fumes of the hydrochloric acid and concentrated ammonia could fill it with smoke or gas, while with the flask at the end I had a peculiar arrangement. I had a tube go to the bottom and back up to the top; the bend of the tube in the bottom of the flask was covered with white sand, and the flask then filled about half full of clear water. This naturally gave the appearance to an observer of a filter, suggesting that the colored liquids were transformed to gas and then back to liquid from the last flask. I connected a rubber tube down cellar into a barrel of water, making all the connections tight, and when the faucet in the "barrel was opened, air was drawn through the thistle tube in the retort and through all the flasks ■down into the barrel in the cellar. This arrange
ment furnished a steady stream of bubbles and gas from five to seven hours, according to the opening of the faucet, and then the barrel was filled again.
We used this display two weeks in our window, and all the time there was a constant, ever-changing crowd in front of the store. There is no doubt that it will prove a good drawing card for any one who will try it. The display was made in the window of Geo. W. Teed, the pioneer druggist of Webster City, Iowa.
The phenomenon taking place in the flasks at the top kept the people interested, and then labels on the various articles in the window educated them as to the utensils used by the pharmacist in the conduct of his scientific and professional work. One card in the center read: "Some of the Articles Used in Compounding, Preparing, and ****yzing Medicines and Prescriptions."
From The Bulletin of Pharmacy, 1906
I know this is probably way more than you wanted to know about William C., but what can I say, he was a big deal...
There's more pictures in the above article as well.
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