NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 1997
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Glenn A. Walsh (412) 561-7876 or walshg@clpgh.org.

EXHIBIT RECALLS
"THE OLD CORNER DRUGSTORE"


Carnegie, Pa., Sept. 12 - Do you remember the "The Old Corner Drugstore"? That is the name of a new exhibit on display, for no charge, at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library, 300 Beechwood Avenue in Carnegie Borough, now through the end of December. The exhibit includes many artifacts, from drugstores of days-gone-by, from the collection of Stanton Jonas, a retired Forest Hills pharmacist.

Displayed is equipment, used in the early 1900s, to prepare prescriptions including a pill-roller, supository molds, hand-held European balances, and mortars and pestles made of porcelain, brass, and iron. Old prescriptions are also displayed, including a prescription written for alcohol during the Prohibition Era. A 1948 "soda-jerking" Certificate, for training in ice cream dispensing, which was included in many old durgstores, is also shown.

There are various old bottles and containers of tonics and proprietary medicines such as Humphrey's products, Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery, Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound(which supposedly had "a baby in every bottle"), Miles Nervine, and five assorted blue Bromo-Seltzer bottles.

The nearly 100 pharmacy artifacts, on display at the Library, are part of a private collection which numbers more than 1,000. The collector, Stanton Jonas, retired in 1990 after working for twenty-six years with the Allegheny County Health Department. He set-up the Health Department's first pharmacy in 1965. He later served as District Health Officer for the Department's Southwest office, based first in Carnegie and later in Green Tree.

The collection has been displayed in libraries throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania. Jonas, who started the collection more than thirty years ago, has received many of the artifacts as donations from other pharmacists, and from the public, who wish these items preserved for public viewing. Jonas continues seeking such artifacts and would welcome donations from the public. This exhibit is available for display, at public venues, at no charge. Jonas can be contacted at (412) 271-6670.

"The Old Corner Drugstore" can be seen any day the Library is open, through the end of December. The regular Library hours are Tuesday through Thursday 12 Noon to 8 p.m., Friday 12 Noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Library is closed Sundays and Mondays, as well as Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Day, and New Year's Eve and Day. Call the Library at (412) 276-3456 for the schedule during the Christmas holidays.

The Andrew Carnegie Free Library opened, as the fourth free public library constructed and endowed by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, on May 1, 1901. In addition to a Library, the cultural complex includes a 780-seat Music Hall(patterned after Carnegie Hall in New York City), 140-seat Lecture Hall, Civil War Museum, and discount bookstore.

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Note to Editors: Stanton Jonas is available for interviews, to show other artifacts in his collection. He can be contacted at (412) 271-6670.



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