Without the friction that marked early developments at Astoria, operations began auspiciously at the United States Army Laboratory at Philadelphia (see Photo 4.1) late in April 1863, when Surgeon General Hammond ordered the Philadelphia medical purveyor to assign to it an allotment of Tarragona port for assay, bottling, and packing in wooden boxes.1 Young women hired by the laboratory's director, Andrew K. Smith, processed this and the other large consignments of wine and spirits which followed it. Although it is notorious in the folklore of the Union armies that "medicinal whiskey" was at times diverted to other purposes, military medicine of the time prescribed huge quantities, much of it with quinine, but also for other uses in regular therapeutics. One shipment received at the laboratory in August 1863 consisted of 250 barrels of whiskey and 1,000 gallons of sherry.2 Almost simultaneously with the first bottling operations the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations began and accelerated rapidly after the first products were shipped, about May 1. Simple cerate, solution of ferrous tersulphate, ammonia liquor, blue mass, silver nitrate, and various powders were among the early items.3 Moving ahead rapidly, Smith realized another of Hammond's objectives when he took with him to Washington, D.C., in July, four-ounce bottles of antimonial powder (James Powder), which bore the laboratory's new seal. These were the first experimental preparations of the laboratory.4