Abstract
The use of diphtheria antitoxin grew enormously from 1895.1 As more scientists and physicians learned the techniques of production and use, the market for the drug expanded and the number of manufacturers increased.2 Public health departments provided both the major market and the training ground for antitoxin production.3 The two major commerical producers of the antitoxin, H. K. Mulford and Parke Davis, both relied on the experience gained from the pioneering work of the New York public health laboratories.4 And both sought to regain private control of the production of biologicals. The use of science was beginning to have very tangible results in the private sector.
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Notes
Wayde Oliver, The Man Who Lived for Tomorrow. William Hallock Park (New York: Dutton, 1941).
F. E. Stewart, ‘Mulford Growth Shows Great Achievement’, Northwestern Druggist, 30 (1922) p. 14. This machine, together with an improvement of 1897, became a popular item which the company sold for $100 for a hand-operated model, and $200 for a power-driven model.
H. K. Mulford Company, Price List (Philadelphia: Mulford, 1900) p. 568. The improvements were made by Abraham Rowland Morris, patented and assigned to Mulford in 1899, US Patent No. 617 255, 3 January, 1899.
Joseph McFarland, ‘The Beginning of Bacteriology in Philadelphia’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 5 (1937) pp. 188–9. This marvellous recollection by McFarland, then the retired Professor of Pathology at the University of Pennsylvania, contains lively anecdotes about his years at Mulford from 1894 to 1896.
‘Personnel file, Henry K. Mulford’, Mulford Records. Obituary, ‘Henry K. Mulford’, Northwestern Druggist, 45 (1937) pp. 59–60. On Milton Campbell, see Stewart, ‘Mulford Growth’.
Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1929) p. 438.
Emil Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato, ‘Ueber das Zustandekommen der Diphtherie-Immunitaet und der Tetanus-Immunitaet bei Thieren’, Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschrift, 16 (1890) pp. 1113–14, 1145–48.
M. J. Rosenau, The Immunity Unit for Standardizing Diphtheria Antitoxin, Hygienic Laboratory Bulletin No. 21 (Washington DC: USGPO, 1905) pp. 18–24.
P. Ehrlich, ‘Die Wertbemessung des diphtherieheilserums and deren theoretische grundlagen’, Klinische jahrbuch (Jena) 6 (1897) pp. 299–376.
On Ehrlich see R. Otto and H. Hetsch, ‘Die Pruefung und Wertbemessung der Sera und Impfstoffe’, in W. Kolle (ed.) Arbeiten aus den Staatsinstitut fuer Experimentelle Therapie und der Georg SpeyerHause zu Frankfurt a. M., part 19 (Jena: Georg Speyer-Haus, 1927). Mulford, ‘Diphtheria Antitoxic Serum’, p. 19.
Mulford, Price List, 1900, p. 569; Edwin Rosenthal, ‘Diphtheria Antitoxin’, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, Alumni Report, 33 (1900) p. 32.
A. Parker Hitchens, ‘The Treatment of Simple Catarrh of the Respiratory Passages with Bacterial Vaccines’, Medical Record, 1 (1912) pp. 104–8.
Charles E. Vanderkleed (Chief Chemist, H. K. Mulford Company), ‘Chemical and Physiological Standardization’, address before the Alumni of New York College of Pharmacy, and Frances E. Stewart, ‘What is Meant by Drug Standardization’, paper read to the annual meeting, National Dental Association, Mulford Records. See also: E. D. Reed and Charles E. Vanderkleed, ‘The Standardization of Preparations of Digitalis by Physiological and Chemical Means’, American Journal of Pharmacology, 80 (1908) p. 110; Charles E. Vanderkleed and L. Henry Bernegau, ‘Can Uniform and Therefore “Standardized” Tinctures be Prepared from Assayed Drugs Without Assaying the Finished Product?’, Pennsylvania Pharmacological Association, Proceedings (1908) pp. 176–80 (reprinted as a Mulford pamphlet) Mulford Records;
H. K. Mulford Company, ‘Importance of Digitalis Standardization’, 1909, Mulford Records; Treasury Department, Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States, Hygienic Laboratory, Bulletin No. 48, Charles Wallis Edmonds and Worth Hale, ‘The Physiological Standardization of Digitalis’, 1908;
Charles C. Haskell, ‘Physiological Methods for the Standardization of Digitalis’, American Journal of Pharmacy, 83 (1911) p. 201 (Haskell worked for the Eli Lilly Company).
E. Rosenthal, ‘Serum Therapy in Diphtheria’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 27 (1896) pp. 11–14.
Oliver, Park; Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz, Public Health and the State. Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842–1936 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972) pp. 113–14.
For a list of states which provided antitoxin free, see Herbert W. Conn, Text-Book of Bacteriology (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1902).
John Thomas Mahoney, The Merchants of Life. A History of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in the United States (New York: Harper, 1959) p.162.
H. K. Mulford Company, ‘“Vaccination” in Cancer. A Report of the Results of the Vaccination Therapy as Applied in 79 Cases of Human Cancer’, Mulford Digest, 1 (1913) pp. 96–103.
Edwin Rosenthal, ‘Reduced Period of Intubation by the Serum Treatment of Laryngeal Diphtheria’, Pennsylvania Medical Society, Transactions, 26 (1896) pp. 238–50.
Joseph W. England (ed.) The First Century of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy 1821–1921 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, 1922).
George M. Gould, ‘Editorial’, Mulford Digest, 1 (1912) p. 2.
Selman Waksman, My Life With the Microbes (London: The Scientific Book Club, 1958) pp. 89–90.
Groesbeck Walsh, ‘Fatility Rates in Cerebrospinal Meningitis’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 110 (1938) pp. 1894–1896.
J. R. Grubb, ‘Glenolden Then and Now, Business Methods in Biological Production’, Keystone, 2 (1919) p. 2; Minutes of the Executive Meeting, 4 November 1918, Mulford Papers.
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© 1987 Jonathan Liebenau
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Liebenau, J. (1987). Selling Science: The H. K. Mulford Company. In: Medical Science and Medical Industry. Studies in Business History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08739-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08739-6_5
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