A collection of Baby Percy nostrums at the McCullough House was part of an exhibit on 19th-century medicine and surgery that was on display through January.
Terri Jo Ryan photo

A proudly “old-fashioned” medicine in retro packaging that features a turn-of-the-20th-century tot is not only a vestige of Waco’s drug store past — it is a part of its present as well.

The preparation known since 1938 as Percy Medicine was born in 1904 in Waco as Baby Percy Medicine with the collaboration of traveling buggy-whip salesman A.W. Percy and Waco druggist W.S. Merrick.

The story goes that when the Percy family was relocating to Waco in 1898 via train, little Albert came down with diarrhea — a serious illness in those days. At a stop in Kentucky, a country doctor mixed up a concoction of bismuth subnitrate-based medicine. Soon, baby Percy was on the mend, and the family went on its way.

After arriving in Waco, A.W. Percy asked pharmacist W.S. Merrick, to prepare the Kentucky recipe to help the child through another bout of stomach upset. The results were so stellar that the druggist asked the lad’s pop to join him in producing the elixir, which came to be known as Baby Percy Medicine.

Before the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act, medicines in America were unregulated. After the legislation’s creation, many pharmaceutical companies dropped their narcotic ingredients — such as cocaine — rather than be forced to reveal their “secret formulas” on the label.
Terri Jo Ryan photo

The company was officially born on Jan. 1, 1904, and continues manufacture the remedy to this day. Two former Behren’s Drug Co. employees — Frank J. Trau and Louis Collie — joined the company and ran it until their deaths in the 1940s. The current owners are J. Reese Killion and stock- holders.

Percy Medicine, as it has been called since 1938, is the only product produced by Merrick Medicine Company at the factory at Eighth Street and Webster Avenue in Waco. It is mixed and bottled by hand and contains “a secret formula of bismuth subsalicylate, calcium hydroxide, potassium carbonate as well as rhubarb extract, sugar, cinnamon and orange flavoring.”

In fact, Percy Medicine holds the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s longest continuously active industrial alcohol use permit, No. 10, issued in 1939. The preparation contains five percent ethyl alcohol — which makes it 10 proof!

The manufacturer suggests its use for diarrhea, indigestion, cholera infantum and “summer complaints of children. Relieves sour stomach instantly. A safe and reliable teething and colic medicine for babies.”

About one Saturday per month, a small crew of helpers reports to the second floor of the Percy Medicine Building to produce 6,000 3-ounce bottles (which retail for about $6 each). Each batch has a shelf life of three years, according to company publications. The batches are sold to wholesalers, who distribute the product around the country. The preparation is also available locally at Walgreens and several online sources.

A collection of patent medicines and elixirs, some of which were manufactured by Waco’s own Baby Percy Medicine (Eighth Street at Webster Avenue), on display at McCullough House. Percy Medicine (re-named in 1938), a preparation for intestinal maladies, is mixed and bottled by hand and contains bismuth Subsalicylate, alcohol, calcium hydroxide and potassium carbonate as well as rhubarb extract, sugar, cinnamon and orange flavoring.
Terri Jo Ryan photo

Sources: PercyMedicine.com, AmericanHistory.SI.edu; HometownFavorites.com; Joey Green’s Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions and Elixirs of the Past — And How to Make Them Today, by Joey Green (2004).

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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