Drug jars often came with blank shields or cartouches. When the contents of the jars were refilled with different ingredients the apothecary wrote the new formula on the medallion.
George Urdang author of The Squibb Ancient Pharmacy Catalogue attributes the containers 1991.0664.0760 through 1991.0664.0825 to the town of Hanau in the late18th century based on the blue and purple floral design surrounding the white medallion and the initials HN on the bottom of many of the jars in the series. However, in a letter dated August 1983, the pharmaceutical historian Wolfgang-Hagen Hein wrote that the containers without initials, and those marked FH were made in Florsheim in the German state of Hesse just twenty-three miles southwest of Hanau.
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