Although primarily associated with filling doctors’ prescriptions and selling medicines and other items for self-care, historically drugstores have also been operated as general stores, selling an intriguing range of toiletries, perfumery, confectionery, seeds for the garden, and household items.?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

For many years, the shopping experiences of customers owed a good deal to the distinctive drugstore aura created by a store’s elegant wooden fixtures, rows of attractive glass containers, and a characteristic aroma arising from drugs and the preparations compounded on the premises.

Newfoundland Drugstores by John K. Crellin is a fascinating account of the important and varied roles that drugstores played in Newfoundland society.

John K. Crellin holds British qualifications in medicine, in pharmacy, and in the history of science. His career spans three countries, at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in the U.K., at Southern Illinois and Duke Universities in the USA, and at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, where he was John Clinch Professor of Medical History until his official retirement in 2002. He lives in St. Philip’s with his wife, Janet, and continues to teach complementary and alternative medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University. He has written several books, some of which have a Newfoundland focus. Mi’sel Joe: An Aboriginal Chief’s Journey, a book he co-edited with Raoul R. Anderson, was a Canadian Aboriginal Books for Schools 2009–2010 Selection; a finalist for the 2010 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing; and a First Nation Communities Read 2011–2012 “Also Recommended” Title.

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