682
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Vol. 22, S o . 6
AMERICAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES
Present Brooklyn Laboratories, E. R . Squibb & Sons
E. R.Squibb & Sons
T
of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Bache. Owing to the very uncertain H E early history of E. R. Squibb & Sons is the history of quality of available drug preparations on the market, and the an individual, of the development and fulfilment of his aims and purposes, Edward Robinson Squibb was born in known interest of Doctor Squibb in such work, Doctor Bache Wilmington, Del., in 1819. At the age of eighteen he was encouraged the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations to apprenticed t o a druggist in Philadelphia, and from 1837 t o be used in the hospital. A building near the hospital was fitted 1842 he worked in the drug houses of Warder Morris and J. H. up as a laboratory and became of considerable importance, but was operated from the hospital funds. Sprague. At the end of that time he In this Navy laboratory new processes entered the Jefferson Medical College for the production and purification of at Philadelphia, from which he received chemicals were developed in rapid his medical diploma in 1845. He then succession. The Squibb repercolation practiced medicine in Philadelphia process for the manufacture of extracts u n t i l 1 8 4 7 , w h e n h e entered the and fluid extracts originated here, as Navy. It is probable that the dissatisfaction did the drug mills that bear his name. Here Doctor Squibb began the experiof Doctor Squibb with the quality of drugs imported and used by manufacments which resulted in the present steam process for the manufacture of turers began during his pharmaceutical ether. In this laboratory he also experience in Philadelphia. There is devised the Squibb process for puriabundant evidence that this feeling fying chloroform. The reputation of rapidly increased while in the Navy. D o c t o r S q u i b b ’ s products became His first appointments were on ships such that efforts t o extend the scope engaged on breaking up the South American and African slave trades. of the work in 1857 aroused commercial and political opposition, and from During his service on sea duty, parfailure of Congress t o a p p r o p r i a t e ticularly i n t h e Mediterranean, h e proper funds the operation of the labospecialized in the study of crude drugs, ratory had to be abandoned. their identification and examination. The superiority and reliability of At the time of his transfer t o shore t h e p r e p a r a t i o n s manufactured a t duty, a t the Brooklyn Naval Hospital the Naval Hospital had stimulated in 1852, he was already considered an Building Originally Used by E. R. Squibb a desire for supplies of this type. With authority on crude drugs. The Naval When He Established His Manufacturing Labothe promise of Army business from the Hospital was a t this time in charge ratory In 1858
June, 1930
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGIATEERI.YG CHEMISTRY
Surgeon-General of the Army, Doctor Satterlee, and with financial aid from medical friends, the manufacturing laboratory of E. R. Squibb, M. D., was established in 1858. Hardly had work begun when a fire, started by exploding ether, swept the building and injured Doctor Squibb so seriously that for some time his life was in doubt. On his recovery reestablishment of the laboratory was made possible by unsolicited loans from numerous physicians, who were anxious that preparations of high quality be available. With such aid and sympathy the new laboratory flourished. The instant success of the project was doubtless t o be expected from its backing, but it gained lasting strength during the period of the Civil War soon following. Doctor Squibb a t this time passed judgment on nearly all of the medical supplies for both Army and Navy and furnished the standard medical equipment and supplies for the constantly increasing Army. The venture was in spirit more professional than commercial. Of Doctor Squibb, Joseph Remington has said:
683
custom being to produce products superior t o U. S. P. requirements. With such aims his first thought was that purchased crude drugs be of the highest quality. I n the early years many of these were purchased directly from abroad and were subjected t o rigid pharmacognostic examination and, when possible, t o chemical assay. All alkaloidal drugs were assayed before use, and the finished preparations obtained therefrom assayed before sale, a procedure which was by no means customary among pharmaceutical manufacturers of those days. Extracts were so standardized that a given volume represented a definite weight of drug and deviations from standards were not permitted. Fluid extracts of cinchona, Calisaya, and wild cherry bark were so s t a n d a r d i z e d a s early as 1864. Fluid extract of c i n c h o n a w a s chemically assayed in 1870. For these purposes Doctor Squibb utilized methods already known, improving upon them when necessary, and originated many new methods of assay as well as of pharmaceutical practice. He was no believer in the proprietary rights of such discoverSterling honesty and right because ies, publishing regularly such assays it was right were his governing and manufacturing o p e r a t i o n s . principles. If an error occurred in Nearly one hundred such papers making a preparation in the laboappeared in the Bulletin of the ratory, the standing rule was to report i t a t once. The author well American Pharmaceutical Society remembers a n occasicm when some and the American Journal of Pharmistake was made in the menmacy, and were read before the meetstruum for a lot of fluid extract of ings of the American Pharmaceutical cinchona. It contained possibly 10 per cent too much or too little S o c i e t y . Moreover, he began in a l c o h o l . T h e culprit, a worthy 1882, with t h e a i d of h i s s o n s , German p h a r m a c i s t , a p p e a r e d Edward H . and Charles F. Squibb, b e f o r e t h e doctor :and confessed the publication of “An Ephemeris of his sin. brithout a moment’s hesitation, the doctor said, “ T h a t ’ s hI a t e r i a iMedica, Pharmacy and too bad, that’s too bad. Empty Collateral Information,” which was i t a l l d o w n t h e culvert.” And to continue until his death and in fully $500 worth of fluid extract which the wealth of his scientific of cinchona found its way in the East River. The writer had the Dr. E. R . Squibb, Taken About 1855, Three Years and practical experience was given before He Established Himself as Manufacturer of hardihood to ask the doctor a week freely t o all, its chief object being Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals after the occurrence why this was “in an informal way to note down, Reproduced from a n old daguerreotype. done. The answer has never been from time t o time, the results of a forgotten. He admitted i t would be possible t o make an equallot of fluid extract of cinchona with the long experience and observation and the deductions therefrom, menstruum so altered that when the two were mixed, the result together with occasional original work.” would have the proper alcohol strength; he turned almost fiercely I n the latter half of the nineteenth century, a period in which and said, “Such work can never be done in this laboratory. These mistakes are costly, but the example and lessons to be proprietary remedies flourished unchecked by governmental learned are valuable and I will not permit a patched-up fluid control of their advertising or claims for medicinal value, Doctor extract t o leave this place.” He never referred again t o the inci- Squibb’s rigid opposition to such practices was of paramount dent, but it may well be said that mistakes of this kind were never value to ethical physicians. His stand on this subject espressed made again. . in the “Ephemeris” of 1882 was: Doctor Squibb was a member of the LT.S. Pharmacopeia Revision Committee of 18GO and, though he refused t o serve on Squibb never did copyright, trademark or patent any medilater committees, he continued t o support the Pharmacopeia cine or preparation of any kind, nor any bottle, label, wrapper or and constantly to aid the Revision Committee by advice and cover of any kind, nor any name or device of any kind. Neither he claim any proprietorship in any process or medicine, nor experimental work as long as he lived. His objects he described did had any secret of proprietary formula or process for anything. in 1863 as being “to uphold the National Pharmacopeia, and to On the contrary, he has always been an uncompromising opposustain the Materia Medica, and pharmacy against the debasing nent of all proprietorship in medicinal articles, and never has, and influences of mercenary competition in trading.” A four-page probably never will, cease from earnestly opposing all forms of copyright and trademark and patent from the mildest form of price list, printed every three months during the early years of manufacture of coated pills up t o the aggravated abominations the laboratory, contained numerous discussions of the U. S.1’. of the patent medicine market. products. When Doctor Squibb believed, however, that the U. S. P. preparation could be improved by variation, he did not E. R . Squibb died in 1900, honored by fellow physicians and hesitate t o alter the method of manufacture accordingly. The with an enviable reputation as a pharmaceutical manufacturer. resulting product was not sold as U. S.P., but with a detailed The business was carried on by his sons, who had been for many statement as t o what changes had been made and the reasons years associated with him. Within a few years it was considered therefor. This policy has and continues t o he constantly pracdesirable to increase the capital of the business and t o resort t o ticed by the firm of E. R. Squibb & Sons. Doctor Squibb more modern methods of merchandising. I n 1905 Lowell Palmer recommended Pharmacopeia1 standards as minimum limits, his and Theodore Weicker purchased a controlling interest in the firm,
684
Carleton H. Palmer, President, E. R . Squibb & Sons
I.YDCSTRIAL -4.1D ENGI.VEERISG CHEMISTRY
Theodore Weicker Sr Vice President, E. R. Sq&b
