Tin container with a “SOZODONT POWDER / FOR CLEANSING THE TEETH” inscription on the lid. The “GINNA & CO., N.Y.” inscription identifies the firm that made the tin. Sozodont—the term presumably comes from the Greek words for save and teeth—was created ca. 1859 by Roswell van Buskirk, a pharmacist in New Jersey. By the early 1870s, Sozodont had become a product of Hall & Ruckel, a wholesale druggist firm in New York City.
Ref: “Roswell van Buskirk,” American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record 40 (1902): 346.
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