Pharmacy Records at the Archives of Ontario: Their Form, Content, and Value for Research

This report provides a brief and very general introduction to pharmacy records at the Archives of Ontario, and to additional sources for research in Ontario pharmacy history. The recently completed processing of pharmacy records themselves involved the arrangement and description of six fonds created between 1833 and 1964 by 15 private retail pharmacies in Ontario. There now exists a descriptive inventory/ finding aid for each of the six fondsI1 and a comprehensive thematic guide including capsule descriptions of all pharmacy-related materials held at the Archives of Ontario and in other Ontario archives and collections, a chronology of Ontario pharmacy history, and bibliographies of relevant published materials2 The pharmacies, two of which remain in business under the management of descendants of their early proprietors, were situated throughout southern Ontario, in villages such as Watford and Tavistock, small- to medium-sized towns like Niagara, Stratford, Guelph, Markham, and Belleville, and large cities, including London, Toronto, and Ottawa. The fonds include records created as early as 1833 by one of the first druggist's businesses established in Upper Canada, , the Niagara Apothecary in Niagara-on-the-LakeI3 as well as records created by three of the longest surviving, continuously operated retail * pharmacies in the province: Geen's Prescription Pharmacy in Belleville," established in 1833; McLaren's Drug Store in Watford? established in 1869; and the Pharmacie Desjardins in Ottawa! established in 1871. Predominantly textual in form, the fonds include prescription records, account books, drug control registers, inventories, and formular