$1 in 1896 US dollars would be roughly $40 today, so this was not a particularly cheap product in its day. Empty bottles show up on various auction sites today.
$1 in 1896 US dollars would be roughly $40 today, so this was not a particularly cheap product in its day. Empty bottles show up on various auction sites today.
Found a history of this guy, from the Southborough Historical Society
Interesting points: He was the first person to create Vanilla extract, and had a whole business selling that and various other flavoring extracts. He supplied the anesthetic used at Massachusetts General Hospital to perform the first painless surgery in the USA. But his “best known product”, per the Historical Society, was in fact this cocaine hair treatment, which he developed in 1857. He also started a business called Deerfoot Farms, which sold a range of meat products, and - bizarrely - supplied a cow that went to the south pole and back with Admiral Byrd.
He died in 1894 in a carriage accident.