Woman spoon feeding medicine to a young girl; various medicines on display on shelves next to woman and child, 1915. In the early 20th century most medicines that people bought from the pharmacy were made by the pharmacist. The shelves around the shop were filled with ingredients to make all kinds of remedies. Customer could buy many medicines directly from the pharmacist. For others, a prescription was written by the doctor to tell the pharmacist what was required for the patient. Prescriptions were written in abbreviated medical Latin, so what the doctor prescribed was a mystery to the patient, a secret between him and the pharmacist. The only information given to the patient would be the dosage. Proprietary medicines were extremely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was a wealth of different remedies claiming to cure all sorts of illnesses from cholera to cancer. What was particularly significant about these medicines was that they were affordable for most people.