Museum reveals progression of pharmaceuticals

By Christian Price, News9.com INsite Team

The Oklahoma Frontier Drug Store Museum in Guthrie, Okla. is the actual location of Oklahoma's first drug store.

The museum's curator, Mark Ekiss, has worked for the last 15 years at the museum. A retired pharmacist himself, he is the perfect tour guide with a keen knowledge of how prescriptions and medicinal drugs have changed through the years.

"There are a lot of drugs here that up until 1915 you could walk into a drugstore and you could buy drugs as we know them like, cocaine, codeine, morphine and laudanum over the counter," Ekiss said. "All you had to do when you purchased the drug was sign a register and state the purpose."

The museum has a vast collection from antiquated pharmaceutical equipment to medicines that are no longer produced.

Eckiss has in the collection a copy of an advertisement from the Bayer Company from 1898. You could send off to the company for a free sample of heroine. The company was marketing it for coughs.

Everything was used to battle illnesses, including animal by products.

The Armour Company once produced a red bone marrow elixir they marketed as a treatment for anemia.

"They would take the bones from the slaughtered cattle and make this red bone marrow extract and the doctor's would prescribe it for anemia," Ekiss said.

From Oklahoma's first issued pharmacy license to asthmatic cigarettes, every place you glance you see something even more interesting. There is even a complete line of cold products marketed under "666".

The museum is Located in Guthrie Oklahoma and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10a.m. to5pm.

www.drugmuseum.org