The immense building erected and occupied by the World's Dispensary Medical Association as a Laboratory, wherein are manufactured our Dr. Pierce's Standard Family Medicines, as well as all the various Tinctures, Fluid Extracts and other pharmaceutical preparations used by the Staff of Physicians and Surgeons of the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute in their practice, is not inappropriately called the World's Dispensary, for within its walls is prepared a series of remedies of such exceeding merit that they have acquired world-wide fame, and are sold in vast quantities in nearly every civilized country.

Illustration: World's Dispensary.
World's Dispensary.—New Laboratory Building.

The structure, located at 660 to 670 Washington Street, immediately in the rear of the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, is of brick, with sandstone trimmings, six stories high, and 100 feet square. Its most striking architectural features exteriorly are massiveness, combined with grace and beauty of outline, and great strength.

THE BASEMENT.

The basement or first story opens on a level with the Washington Street sidewalk, and is occupied by a plant of two large boilers, which supply the steam to run a huge American engine, of 100 horse-power, [pg 938]built by the American Engine Co., Bound Brook, N.J. It drives all the machinery of the establishment, including drug mills, pill machines, packing machinery, a large number of printing presses, folding machines, stitching, trimming, and many other machines, located on the different floors, and used in the manufacture of medicines, books, pamphlets, circulars, posters, and other printed matter. On this floor is located steam bottle-washing machinery, and also the shipping department. Here may be seen huge piles of medicine, boxed, marked, and ready for shipment to all parts of the civilized world. A large steam freight elevator leads from this to the floors above.

MACHINERY.

Illustration: Postal, Advertising, Wrapping and Mailing Departments.
Postal, Advertising, Wrapping and Mailing Departments.

In addition to the power engine just mentioned is a 25 horse-power upright engine for running the dynamo for electric lighting, with a capacity of three hundred (300) lights. This engine and dynamo were also manufactured for us by the American Engine Company of Bound Brook, N.J. There is a small dynamo with a capacity of one hundred (100) lights used during the day to light safes, vaults, dark closets and hallways. All the offices and rooms of patients are supplied with electric light, as well as illuminating gas. An automatic Worthington [pg 939]pump is also located in the basement. This supplies the elevator and sprinkling system. The sprinklers come into play only in case of fire, when they are self-acting. This pump at its best is capable of forcing nearly two hundred gallons of water a minute. There is no place in which pure water is more desirable than in the manufacture of medicines. Our New York filter could, if such a large quantity were ever required, furnish the Dispensary with one hundred (100) barrels of pure water a day. Just beyond the south wall and buried several feet under ground is a boiler-shaped tank capable of storing ten thousand (10,000) gallons of medicine.

MAIN FLOOR.

The main or second floor of the Dispensary is entered from Main Street, through a hall leading from the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute. On this floor are located business offices, counting-room, the advertising department and mailing rooms. Large, fire-proof vaults are provided for the safe keeping of books, papers, and valuables, whilst the counting-room and offices are elegantly finished in hard woods, and present a beautiful and grand appearance.

THIRD FLOOR.

On this floor are the Association's extensive printing and binding works. Fourteen large presses, driven by power, with numerous folding machines, trimming, cutting, and stitching machinery, are constantly running in this department. Here is printed and bound Dr. Pierce's popular work of over a thousand pages, denominated "The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser," over 1,200,000 copies of which have been sold. Millions of pocket memorandum books, pamphlets, circulars and cards are also issued from this department and scattered broadcast to every quarter of the globe.

FOURTH FLOOR.

Large mills for crushing, grinding and pulverizing roots, barks, herbs, and other drugs occupy a considerable part of this floor. Extensive drying-rooms, in which articles to be ground in the drug mills are properly dried, are also located upon this floor, as are also thousands of reams of paper ready for printing the different books, pamphlets, labels, etc. In large rooms set aside for that purpose, are stored vast quantities of labels and wrappers, for use in putting up medicines.

FIFTH FLOOR.

On this floor is located ingeniously devised filling and bottling machinery, also rooms for labeling, wrapping, and packing medicines; others are occupied for the storage of crude drugs, glass, corks, and supplies for use in the general business.

SIXTH FLOOR.

This entire floor is occupied with mixing, percolating, distilling, [pg 940]filtering, and other processes employed in the manufacturing of medicines. Every process is conducted under the watchful care of an experienced chemist and pharmacist, and in the most perfect and orderly manner; the apparatus employed being of the most approved character. Here are manufactured all the various medicinal preparations and compounds prescribed by the Faculty, in the treatment of special cases.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

Illustration: Section of Chemical Laboratory.
Section of Chemical Laboratory.—World's Dispensary.

In all departments of this vast business establishment, the visitor is struck with the perfect system which everywhere prevails, and the wonderful accuracy with which every process and transaction is carried on and consummated; hence the uniformity of purity and strength for which the medicines here manufactured have so long been celebrated. To this, also, is due much of the marvelous success attained in the department established for the special treatment of chronic and obstinate cases of disease. In this department the Faculty are not at all limited or hampered in prescribing, and do not confine themselves in the least to the proprietary or standard medicines manufactured for general sale through druggists, but employ a series of curative agents unsurpassed in variety and range of application. They aim to carefully adapt their prescriptions to each individual case.[pg 941]