Dr. Pierce’s World’s Dispensary Medical Assoc. Memorandum & Account Book

Used by an Edith Marguerite Wilson approx 1924 – 25. Interesting item.

Ray Vaughn Pierce received his M.D. degree in 1862 from the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, and soon thereafter went to work com­pounding an emmenagogue which he registered as Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription. The product contained savin, cinchona, agaric, cinnamon, acacia, digitalis,  opium,  anise and water.  Dr. Pierce also introduced about 1870 his Golden Medical Discovery, which contained lactucarium, honey, opium, alcohol and water. The same year he acquired manufactur­ing rights to Dr. Sage’ s Catarrh Remedy and he subsequently introduced his Pleasant Purgative Pellets and his Compound Extract of  Smart-Weed. Within a short time Pierce was doing such a business that he was able to build Pierce’ s Palace Hotel in Buffalo, and he gained enough fame to be elected to Congress for one term (1879-1880). During his service in Congress, Dr. Pierce incorporated the World Dispensary Medical Associa­tion to continue the manufacture of his products. On Dr. Pierce’s death in 1914, Dr. V. Mott Pierce assumed control of the firm. With the younger Pierce’ s passing in 1942, the family’s remaining interests merged into Pierce’s Proprietaries, Inc.

(Holcombe, Henry W., American Philatelist, 54: 44-53, October, 1940; see also Stewart Holbrook, pp. 167-173; Gerald Carson, p.98)