Every time I watch this film, I sort of step back a bit from my suspension of disbelief when Mr. Gower tastes the poison to make sure it's poison. I guess it's only harmful if ingested in large doses. Plus, what's a druggist doing with a bottle clearly labeled POISON in his shop? What's he going to do with it? Hand it out to customers and kill them?
shareMy guess is that this is a sort of small down drug store that functions as a general store. So Mr. Gower had some poison on hand for pest control.
shareYeah...I guess they tasted a lot back then to make sure. Like in the beginning of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK that guy tastes the poison arrow.
shareBlood thinning drugs are basically rat poison so...
shareIt's not an uncommon thing. I've seen many episodes of cop shows where police chemists are doing quick tastes to confirm something is heroin etc.
shareHence, not really "poison". Rat poison just overly thins the animal's blood. Rodents get LOTS of tiny scratches on their paws just from all the places they go. Rat poison just makes it so the blood doesn't coagulate and they just never really stop bleeding and eventually bleed out. It doesn't poison them at all, in the sense we think about "poison".
shareFirst of all, Druggists of the time actually mixed the prescriptions that the Doctors wrote out, like a recipe from a cookbook. Also, an old time "Poison" bottle didn't necessarily SAY "Poison". It might say "Ascorbic Acid", but Mr. Gower would have another way of knowing. POISON BOTTLES were usually in BRILLIANT shades of Green, blue or purple. The bottles were also scratchy to the touch, and covered with ridges. (I collect them <g>)
George had seen Mr. Gower's telegram about his son, and seen him put the wrong compound in the capsules. He made a judgement call, and brought the tainted medicine back to Mr. Gower.
I do hope he won't upset Henry...
He probably also saw the bottle that said POISON in big letters on it so he'd know, like the audience would. :)
Now, if he knew the capsules were poison, why didn't he just tell Mr. Gower right away before he even left the shop? That way, Mr. Gower wouldn't need to taste the poison and could see he still had left out a big bottle labeled POISON.
So, is there an actual name for the hobby of collecting apothecary bottles? Seems there's an official name for just about every other collecting hobby, so, why not that one?
As far as I know, there isn't... (g) My Dad worked for a pharmaceutical company, and I started collecting the bottles when I was a kid...because I thought they were pretty. Medical memorabilia is a very popular thing to collect, and medical glassware would probably fall under that.. I have a school chum that collects Lab Glass: Beakers, test tubes and such. I also had a science teacher who collected antique Doctors' Bags.
I do hope he won't upset Henry...
Professional pharmacists have greatly developed sense of taste and smell. Gower most likely took an eentsy taste of the powder in one capsule and recognized it as poison immediately.
shareThis is another example of the premise, you should look at the entire movie as a window into another time entirely...not view it as representing today...
It was quite common in the early part of the twentieth century, for Pharmacists to taste the ingredients for the drugs content...at the time, there weren't Pharmaceutical Companies hardly, and druggists had to formulate their pills themselves...poisonous chemicals were, and still are, part of the formulations...that's why you have warnings in every commercial...
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Plus, what's a druggist doing with a bottle clearly labeled POISON in his shop?