Brocades & Stheeman. Van apotheker-fabrikant tot farmaceutische industrie

Abstract

Brocades & Stheeman. From apothecary-manufacturer to pharmaceutical industry In the middle of the nineteenth century, vegetable products were the most important raw material for the pharmaceutical industry. That industry was a 'pharmacist-industry' and the quality of their products was defined in the official pharmacopoeias. Eisso Post Stheeman was one of these pharmacists and although he was a producer of medicines he stayed a pharmacist between pharmacists. He communicated with them about the quality of medicines in terms of pureness, identity and preparation. His successor, Sypko Stheeman, went into his father’s steps. He too was primarily a pharmacist; only after that a producer of (vegetable) drugs. Still, there was a difference between them. Sypko focussed more on commerce and production of medicines. To that end price-lists were published from 1878 onwards. These price-lists became an important medium of communication between manufacturer and pharmacist. The introduction of the steam engine in 1894 represents a turning-point. Steam energy made many new activities possible, and the production of medicines and dispensation-forms became possible on a much larger scale. The development that had set in with the introduction of steam energy was completed in the years between 1901 and 1914. Production of medicines grew enormously, but an important renewal was the production of tablets. Millions of them left the factory in Meppel every day. At the same time, the firm strived to give each of the produced medicines its own identity. Brocades & Stheeman not only introduced 'spécialités', but chemical drugs, produced by others, were being marketed under the label of B S as well. Gradually, the standard of pharmacist-quality had been replaced by Brocades & Stheeman-quality. This step generated many new problems. Not only did the pharmacists see their pharmaceutical standard was at risk, the producers of chemical medicines (Bayer and Zimmer are specimen) protested against the use of their product-names through Brocades & Stheeman. Brocades & Stheeman began looking for new partners and came to terms with general practitioners. The physicians became the new associate when new drugs were introduced. The pharmaceutical standard were moved to the background, to be replaced by medical-farmacological standards. At first, spécialités were introduced that had their basis in already existing products. However, in a new molecule was synthesised by the factory in Meppel for the first time. Chemistry, patents and clinical trials each played their part when looking for a new drug. At the same time they distanced themselves from the so-called secret remedy. In 1914, Brocades & Stheeman had reached the point where Hoechst had been in 1884: the synthesis of a new organical-chemical substance and the introduction of that substance as a drug.