Oral History Interview with James Burgess

Gatewood: In the home of Mr. James Burgess. This tape is sponsored by the Folklore Foundation of Kentucky. It is on the subject of healthcare in the twentieth century in . Tom Gatewood doing the interview. Mr. Burgess established, is a graduate of the in the school of pharmacy there. And came to and established the first private drugstore in the county in the city, of . Mr. Burgess, had you any background, had you worked around a pharmacist before you went to pharmacist school?

Burgess: No I hadn’t.

Gatewood: What caused you to decide to go into that profession?

Burgess: Well, I’ll tell you, I really, I wanted to study medicine is what I wanted to do. Be a doctor. And at that time, the schools were pretty well limited with the doctors they wanted to enroll. So therefore you had to, as I understood, you had to have either a congressman to get you in, or have an outstanding relative that was a doctor. Or an outstanding doctor in the locality to recommend you. Which I didn’t have either one of them. We had a fellow there at home, Mr. Dyer, he was from , that had a drugstore there when I was growing up. So back then, I reckon children didn’t have any kind of counseling or anything. Most of us just didn’t really know what we wanted to do, honestly. So when I finished school, he had a boy over in Albany that was willing to go up and study pharmacy, because he was going to take up for him. So he asked me one day, he said, “What are you planning on doing?” I said, “Well, I don’t know, Doc.” I called him Doc Dyer.

Gatewood: Always did. We did that in my community. The pharmacist was called Doc.

Burgess: He said, “Well, I’m taking a boy up at the Louisville College of Pharmacy. Why don’t you just go with him? And enroll up there.” I said, “Well, I might just as well, because I don’t have anything in mind I might want to do.” That’s how I got started in it. And I didn’t know a thing about what a drugstore was like. All I knew was just what little bit, you know, when I go pick up medicine or something for my dad. That’s about all I knew about a drugstore.

Gatewood: So you grew up around ?

Burgess: No, I grew up in Burnside.

Gatewood: In Burnside. I see. But you knew this person in .

Burgess: Well, yeah. He was the druggist there at Burnside at that time. But he was from .

Gatewood: I see. I have a friend, that was the way he got into it. He knew the druggist there. Although he did work at the drugstore. But the doctor, they called him Doctor, I think it was Doctor Hawkins, well he knew that Brendan McCarty was an able person and he was interested in healthcare, in science, you know. So he suggested and got him into pharmacist school. That’s kind of a common pattern for them to do that. Now when you got to , you began to, did you enjoy your work there? Your studies at the school?

Burgess: Yes, I really did. It’s quite a bit of a subject matter I’d never had, such as chemistry and of course those subjects pertaining to medicine itself. I’d never had anything like that in high school. It was a little tough. But after a while, I finally got used to it and I really did enjoy it.

Gatewood: And you started there in what year?

Burgess: 1933

Gatewood: And finished?

Burgess: In ’37.

Gatewood: In ’37.

Burgess: During a flood there in . Got washed out. [laughs]

Gatewood: Right. I had accounts of that by other people on tape. What caused you to come to this area? Was that the first, did you first come here right out of school?

Burgess: Yes. For a permanent position. Now of course at that time, my class was the first four-year schooling that they had. Before that, they’d only had two and three years of schooling. And so many years of apprenticeship. And my class was the first four-year class. And I had to have two years of apprenticeship. So say I took, I had worked in other drugstores in various places during the summer months to gain that two years time. And really, I had finished, I had finished school before I got my two years completed because I had to take a year later after I’d already finished school before I even got a diploma.

Gatewood: Where did you take that?

Burgess: Well, at various drugstores over the, some in the state of , some in . To get my time. Because I can only work just a small length of time because of the summer months. See, at that time, they wouldn’t count if you worked while you were going to school. It had to be after school was either out in the summer months, or after I’d finished school at the end of my four years.

Gatewood: In your practice there as an apprentice, did you involved in actually preparing drugs some? Or was it totally−

Burgess: I’ll tell you back then, back then, it was altogether different than it is now. Back then, you had to do about everything from sweeping floors, working behind the fountain, and some prescription work and delivery service and just about everything that needed to be done. This day and time, it’s not that way. Usually these boys that finish pharmacy school now, they’re stuck in the prescription department. And that’s about all they do, most of them. They have very little training as far as salesmanship and what not. I’ve found it so. They may have it in school now, but they didn’t have it when I went to school.

Gatewood: That was probably good experience for you, though, in running a whole drugstore. Wasn’t it?

Burgess: Yes, it was. I had some good men that I worked with after I got out. I really and truly, as far as the running of a drugstore, I learned more, I guess, two years after I got out under the supervision of some of these old pharmacists, than I learned in all the schools.

Gatewood: Could you comment on some of those experiences you had, and who, if you can remember the names of where they were?

Burgess: Well, let’s see. I worked in . I don’t recall the name of the pharmacy, nor the pharmacist. That was while I was still going to school. And I worked some for Byron Begley over in . The head of, or was, one of the beginner of Begley’s drug chain. And then I worked for Lane’s a while in . That was during my apprenticeship. And for Cole’s Drug in . I worked over there for him about a year-and-a-half. And that’s when then, after I came up here. I mean I came here from over there. And again, those were chain stores. They were really a great help to me for out front work, because they had a good training program.

Gatewood: Did, could you tell us a little bit about this area before you came here, and why you came here. In particularly, was this a pretty booming coal area at that time?

Burgess: Well, it had been, but it had begun to sort of slow down because there used to be a, they closed up a lot of the mines in the meantime. And they just seemed to gradually faze them out. And when we came here, they were still in the lumber business a while after we came here a while, they fazed that lumber business completely out. What got me, how come I come here was, we had a fellow that’s a lawyer here now, Homer Ramsey, that was teaching school at that time at Burnside. And of course my uncle went in with me. As a matter of fact, he was the one who supplied the money, because I didn’t have it.

Gatewood: I can imagine.

Burgess: And Homer had talked to him. He lived in a room there, the same place my uncle lived. And he had talked to him about it. And my Uncle George told him I was sort of looking for a place to set up a drugstore. And I had two or three different places in mind, although I didn’t know anything about any of them, just looking, that’s about all. So he sort of sold Uncle George on the idea that there had never been a drugstore in this county, except this one I spoke of just a few minutes ago before we started this interview. I don’t know how long it really lasted before.

Gatewood: Was it connected directly to the Stearns Lumber Co?

Burgess: I suppose it was. Because see, it wasn’t here when I came here. It had already gone out of business.

Gatewood: So the people here didn’t have any pharmaceutical service when you came.

Burgess: Except from the doctors.

Gatewood: And they probably would have to order it or go to and pick it up. How did the people do?

Burgess: Well, I guess they had probably gone to other places. The hospitals, maybe, around , and so forth like that. If they were given any orders for any medicine, I assume they got them there in or wherever they were, because they certainly couldn’t have gotten them here. Although the doctors did handle, well, some little things maybe of an emergency nature. Treating ailments, common ailments, what have you. Mostly, I wouldn’t say emergency, exactly, because we’d have to refer them into hospitals. The only hospital I reckon around close by that I can remember was . They had one in , but I can’t tell you how long it’s been there. , of course, had one for ever since I can remember.

Gatewood: Did, when you came here, how many doctors were there in the area? Approximately, that you remember?

Burgess: Four or five, I guess. Maybe more. I can’t recall because I didn’t, they had some in summer camps that I never did know, I just have heard of. About five of them I knew personally.

Gatewood: So this, the, when you started your pharmacy and doctors started coming in, did they just start writing prescriptions for patients? How did the people react to that? Were they accustomed to it?

Burgess: No, they weren’t. As a matter of fact, most of these doctors didn’t write prescriptions more or less like they do at the present time. They just sort of wrote out an order of anything they wanted dispensed at the drugstore. It wasn’t hardly that you could determine a prescription. Because I’ve had to show some of them how to write some of them, of what they want. I mean, what they wanted as far as medication was concerned. They didn’t know just how to write it out. Because evidently they hadn’t been to school too much. Because these fellows that I’m talking about, oh, gee, they’d been out of school for long before, I guess, prescriptions were really used, made use of.

Gatewood: So you had to really, somewhat of a teaching function with the doctors to showing them how to−

Burgess: They may know they wanted, but they didn’t know how to write it out or how to even write the directions of what we’d actually term a prescription. They could write it out as an order, more or less. They were writing, say, for instance, to give an order to an individual to do such and such. Or go in there to the dispensary and count out so many pills and give it to the patient. But as far as getting them to write out the prescription, or what we would term a prescription, they didn’t know too much about it.

Gatewood: That’s very interesting. I gather what you’re saying is that in those days, in that period, there was a definite, well, a definite prescription for all the pharmacists to fill. That you understood how to, you actually had to mix things. You didn’t just pick it off the counter. Or not, I don’t mean pick it off the counter, but I understand, now it seems that a lot of times druggists just simply, that things are prepared. You just say, “I want tetrathyacine or something, and then they, it’s already prepared.

Burgess: Yes. That’s right.

Gatewood: You did more actual mixing of drugs.

Burgess: At that time, yes. You filled your own capsules, made your own ointments and made your own compound mixtures of liquids and solutions. Eye drops. You didn’t have those things back then, to speak of.

Gatewood: You bought them in bulk and then you mixed them. You bought the certain ingredients and then you−

Burgess: Yes. That’s right.

Gatewood: Very skilled work. A lot of knowledge and know-how to…

Burgess: That’s, right now, as far as, I don’t guess I’ve filled a capsule or an ointment or a compound mixture, or made an emulsion, in the last, I could almost say it’s safe to say in fifteen or twenty years. I’ve never done that. Everything now is just already put up. All you’ve got to do is just count it out or pour it out. It’s just altogether different. Most of the, seems to me like most of the modern pharmacists, of course they’re, they’re much more advanced in the field of pharmacy, really, than I am as to up-to-date matters. Because they’re taught now more or less in school as, toward laboratory work. And when I was taught in school, we were schooled more in the practical things that you had to do running an old community drugstore. That’s a vast difference now. Many of these boys now they get out, they don’t know a thing in the world about salesmanship or very little about how to run a drugstore. Or, so I found it. They may be getting over into that now because some of them were complaining, you know, a lot of these young boys going into pharmacy school just didn’t know what to do as far as the front merchandise was concerned, and such as that, and salesmanship. They weren’t, don’t seem to be taught that way now. My oldest boy, he’s a pharmacist. And he was schooled in prescription drugs well. But as far as out front, running the drugstore, he didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground. [laughs]

Gatewood: Going back to your training in , do you have any training in actually working with organic substances like roots and herbs? Did you have a lab in that, by chance?

Burgess: Oh, yes.

Gatewood: You did?

Burgess: We had chemistry labs. And botany. We had the study of plants and so forth. We had all that.

Gatewood: A lot of that.

Burgess: It was more practical then.

Gatewood: But when you came here and started working the early years, did you have any, did you have any relationship with, my understanding was that these people, before they had pharmacists, and even before they had doctors, quite often were pretty, some of the folk traditions of, skilled at mixing herbs and roots and things together. Did you ever know of anybody like that?

Burgess: No. I don’t know of anybody personally in this county that done anything like that. Although I’m sure it was done, because I have heard a number of people that I’ve talked to about their grannies, years ago, that mixed various herbs and roots and so forth, and making cough syrups and things like that. Of course, I know that was done quite a bit when we first come here. Because they would come in and buy the ingredients to mix at home, making home remedies, buying various drugs. I do know that. Now, we’re not, a lot of those drugs that they used to buy like that and mix them are practically a thing of the past. We just don’t mix them anymore like we used to.

Gatewood: What were some? Can you recall some of the drugs that people did buy just individually to mix?

Burgess: Well, let’s see. Glycerin, for making cough syrups. Of course, they had their own honey. They bought the rock candy. And naturally used a little alcoholic, alcohol, in mixing it and making their cough syrup. And we’ve had them come in, and I don’t know how they made it, and buy goldenseal. They used to take it if they were sick to their stomach. And it is a good stomach remedy, in its day. But we don’t sell much of that anymore, now, like we used to. Because when we first come here, we sold a lot of drugs that way. Home remedies that these people just made up themselves.

Gatewood: Now once you began to operate, how do you get started in the community? How do you get to know the doctors and get them working with you? Can you kind of enlighten me on that? How you just come in here and−

Burgess: Well, the way I done, when I came here, of course, I went up and talked to Dr. Meece. And so Dr. Meece is a good old fellow, he just about took me in as my second daddy, more or less. Because he helped me quite a bit. And then of course he introduced me to the other doctors in the county. And he more or less spoke for me as to why I was there. And he would hope that they would help support me, that we’d keep a drugstore here. And they did.

Gatewood: And Dr. Meece, J.C. Meece −

Burgess: He was really the one that really helped me.

Gatewood: And he was a coal company doctor, was he?

Burgess: No. Well now he was when he first come here, cause he worked up here for a very important, a very important coal company. But then when he came to , he still done that work. He still went to the camp. But he also then done private practice, you see, in this whole locality. But he was really the one that really helped me more than anything else in getting started here.

Gatewood: Did you, did you find that in the beginning, even though this was somewhat declining in terms of prosperity with the coal mines going out, it still was a fairly profitable business?

Burgess: Yes. We managed to pay our bills without any problems. I’ll tell you, really, when we really started making any money at all, and being able to make any, see our way ahead, was when they first established the welfare programs. That really helped us more than, of course, that was some years after that, you know, when I first started here. That really was a great shot in the arm then. Because it, that’s when we were again really making some money on it. Otherwise, the other way, we were just living, more or less. That’s about all you could say about it. But we done just as well, I guess, as anybody else, under the circumstances. You take back 1929, ’30, along in there, and that was some rough, rough times then. That was just, they refer back to it now as the Depression. And that was just about what you would call it, too. So in all, in all, we done right well, I guess, under the circumstances.

Gatewood: You think we’re moving into circumstances somewhat similar to that? As far as−

Burgess: As the economy is concerned? Yes, I think we’re, things are going to get a little tougher. But then−

Gatewood: What about, particularly, in the areas like this where there is apparently a lot of poverty that has been involved, has been supported, has been helped by Medicaid. And all these are being cut out. What effect is that going to have on people’s healthcare, do you think?

Burgess: Well, it’s not going to, it’s not going to be a very bright picture, that’s for sure. But I’ll tell you, it’s seemingly, our county’s been termed a poverty county for years. And it seems like to me, over the years that I’ve been here, that we’re just about five to ten years behind everybody else. In other words, everybody else feels it before we, it strikes us. Which is really very fortunate in our, because even though we haven’t really set the woods afire, so to speak, compared with other places. But I think most of us, under the circumstances, we’re able to take it more so than a lot of those that’s expanding and then all at once the bottom fell out from under them. Because we haven’t expanded that fast and had our bottom kicked out.

Gatewood: You’ve had a conservative, conservative business approach.

Burgess: Ours has been a very smooth process.

Gatewood: But you did build, you did build another drugstore, didn’t you? You have two, I believe, in town, do you?

Burgess: Yes.

Gatewood: Why did you do that? Was that−

Burgess: Well, one of the main reasons we done it was the doctors were interested in putting in a building. And we had already bought at another drugstore in a shopping center just downtown. And when the doctors became interested in wanting to get a little bit out of town, and to increase the size of their building, we decided then that we’d like to increase the size of our drugstore. And we were able to purchase this land up there. We owned the land, you see, so we just got together with the doctors and said, “Well now look here, if you want to expand your building, and we want to expand ours. And we own this land. Why don’t we just form another organization and put this building up here, and make it a doctors’ building for both the pharmacists and doctor building.” And they said that would be fine, they’d like that.

Gatewood: Sounds good.

Burgess: And we had more room to park and so forth. We didn’t have that. When they were in the old building out here with the doctors, they didn’t have room hardly to take care of the parking facility. And then, too, of course, my son, youngest son, was a doctor. And he was with Dr. Winchester.

Gatewood: Is he with the group in the group practice with−

Burgess: Right. And of course that was another reason that we went into it up there. It seems to me like, years ago, all the town we had was just what you saw down here on . When I see so many, you’ve got other places that moved down into small areas in shopping centers. And seemed like the people are beginning to move out. Even in other towns, they’re moving out away from what used to be the town proper. And that’s the same thing that’s happening here. So that’s one reason why I wanted to move out, too, so we could have more room. It seems to be the general trend now.

Gatewood: Now there’s also, isn’t there a clinic that some nun has been working with the health service homecare? Isn’t she building a clinic in that same area?

Burgess: There’s a building next door there to us that we own. The church people of the town, the Catholic church and the Protestant churches have gotten together, and it’s a health care center. And one of the girls, one of the nuns here that’s been doing a lot of that work here before, she is sort of helping a great deal up there in this particular place where we have the center. And maybe it’s two or three of them. I don’t know just how many there are together, but I do know that she’s a great help up there for them. And of course we have a comprehensive care center up here for people, you know, that has mental illness. Right next door, this used to be the superintendent’s school building. But they have had this program there now, this comprehensive care. And of course we have two medical centers. Really, we have the one up here where our drugstore is, you just mentioned. And we have one on new Highway 27, Dr. Perry, and Dr. West. We really have two medical centers.

Gatewood: The doctors also seem to be more in little centers then− in your period, I guess there were more country doctors, weren’t there, that worked in little places.

Burgess: Yes, they were all, back when we first come here, they were scattered all over the county. Just like I said, in the beginning, when we started the center, each of the coal camps down here had their own doctors. And usually they just took care of those patients within their own camp at that time. Of course I’m sure they overlapped at times. Maybe someone from another camp would go see the doctor here. But that was their real purpose. They had their own doctors in their own camps. And usually that was their responsibility.

[30 minutes]

[End Tape One, Side A. Begin Side B.]

Burgess: They gave the medicine out themselves in their offices.

Gatewood: They just had a place that the drugs came in that they ordered, and they went and picked them up and gave them out in their office.

Burgess: Right. They just handed them out, you know, as their patients came in. They would give them the drugs that were mostly just for these common ailments. Ailments that would be more prevalent than anything else, you see. Like your colds and your aches and your pains, arthritis, and so forth. Such as that. Again, if there are any specialty medicines. Of course, they’d have me to either check if I had them, or else they would just have me to order it for them.

Gatewood: These people, even the ones who were employed by the coal companies, did they sometimes work with, doctor on other people who maybe were not coal miners? To your knowledge?

Burgess: Did what now?

Gatewood: Did they doctor other people, as well as the people in the coal camps?

Burgess: Oh, yes. Yes.

Gatewood: They tended to have kind of a private practice on the side.

Burgess: Right. Yes. That’s right.

Gatewood: So then they would−

Burgess: At the time, most all of them, though, were miners or lumbermen. Of course there was, I’m sure there was others here. They just say, for instance, those that already retired or something, maybe, that were on pensions or something. Whether they, doctors supplied them with the medicine then the way they had in the very beginning, where they paid in so much to the company, I don’t know. Maybe. They may have just gone in, out, more or less, I guess that’s where these private individuals with the private practice was developed. From these people.

Gatewood: Because it probably was a gradual process. As the industry declined, then they would take more private practice on until eventually, like Dr. Meese, they would primarily be private physicians.

Burgess: Right. He was a private physician. And he treated miners, some miners. And he treated people that wasn’t even associated with the mines, that were doing other work in this county. Like a grocery man, or something like that. He was their doctor.

Gatewood: Now the people that would come in, as you say, in the early period to buy specific elements that you knew were probably going to be used to fashion some kind of little home remedy, were those people mainly people that would be relatively poor in terms of not necessarily, they were more of the backwoods type people than the soured coal miner or the person in the town?

Burgess: You mean the ones that made up their own remedies? Not necessarily. No, there were a lot of these people that were miners that made up, they had their own recipes, and they made up their own medicines. Common medicines, like the cough syrups, especially. I didn’t necessarily mean that they were just, that they were supposed to have gotten just the medicine from the doctors only that was employed by the company. That wasn’t, not necessarily that way. Cause they made up their own remedies, too. Even though they−

Gatewood: Even though they could have got it through the company store.

Burgess: Right.

Gatewood: They went on and did their own thing.

Burgess: Right. A lot of them had their own special recipes, you know. Cause these people through here, I found, are from their grandmothers and grandfathers and great-grandfather, just handed down their recipes, all down through the ages. There were some mighty good ones, too, by the way.

Gatewood: Were they at that period when you came in, were they still using the natural herbs and roots? Or had they begin to depend more on, like you said, goldenseal was, I understand it is an indigenous plant, isn’t it? Goldenseal?

Burgess: Yes.

Gatewood: But they had begun, they didn’t gather it like they used to. They buy it−

Burgess: No. Well, they just, they done both ways. Some gathered it and powdered it up, and some just came in to buy. They’re still doing that now. A lot of these people go out here and dig up ginseng and so forth. Because right now, it’s high as the dickens on the market. A fellow told me the other day, I believe, on ginseng, it was way up to a hundred and some odd dollars a pound. It’s awful expensive.

Gatewood: Yes, the Chinese, it’s a big market in for it. Think the people have discovered it.

Burgess: Of course, a lot of these drugs, I’ve had these fellows that bring some of it in. I’d never seen any. I’d seen it in the school, you know, where it had been broken up and all. But I had never seen any in the live plant. I wouldn’t have know it if I walked out in the middle of the road. But I had a lot of these people that knew all this that had been in the habit of digging these herbs for years and years. And bring it in and let me see it. See what it looked like. We didn’t have that in school. We just had it already in a powdered form or of that nature. We just didn’t see it in the plant, except just maybe pictures in our book. And that was real interesting. Some of these old fellows was bringing this stuff in, and explain it to me. What they do with it and so forth. It was very interesting.

Gatewood: What were some of the other herbs that they would bring in besides ginseng and yellowseal?

Burgess: Well, May apple and larkspur. Just about most anything you can name that grow around here. Except, you know, unless it’s something like a tropical plant of that nature. There’s a lot of herbs that grow around here that these people still dig and use. But it’s not as prevalent as it was. Because again, now, since they can buy the preparations already prepared, it’s beginning to work in that direction, more so than going back to the old time remedies. And then of course they’re becoming better educated in new drugs. And through the magazines and so forth that they get, and their farm journals and what not. They have kind of a tendency now to turn more to the later information, and later use of drugs, than what they did when we first come here.

Gatewood: Probably a lot of the young ones wouldn’t know how, wouldn’t know what one looked like?

Burgess: There’s some of them, in my opinion, these young children wouldn’t know a thing in the world about what Grandma and Grandpa was talking about.

Gatewood: Well that’s an interesting, an awful interesting thing. It shows that you were sensitive and intelligent and related to people to know that that was going on, that those fellows that bring the stuff in who talked to you about it, even though you’d not seen it in med school, you knew that that’s solid, it had validity.

Burgess: Yes, it was very interesting. I enjoyed it. And they seemed to enjoy bringing it in and giving me what they know about it, and what they used it for. A lot of times we didn’t agree on everything of what they were using it for. But that was all right.

Gatewood: If, in some general way, I know it’s more complicated than I could understand, but could you give me, if possible, an illustration of something that they were using that was good from your scientific knowledge, and something that you felt was not very effective?

Burgess: I don’t know. That’s kind of hard.

Gatewood: Well, you mentioned goldenseal. It would be good. How did they use goldenseal?

Burgess: They mixed it, at that time, they came in and bought pepsin syrup, not syrup of pepsin but the elixir of lactated pepsin, which is one of your enzymes in your stomach, you know. And they mixed it with that. And it is a good stomach remedy. It seems to have a coating like effect. And I’ve had some of these older people telling me they’d been taking it for years where they’ve had soreness in the stomach and probably maybe had an ulcer and they just didn’t know what it was. And they were using it. And it seemed to work for them. And of course, you know, you get all kind of wild ideas. Some of them talking about using this on sores or something that they thought was cancerous. Some of these drugs. And I know good and well it didn’t work. But they just happened to have…You ain’t going to change it. It’s not going to make no difference what you tell them.

Gatewood: As long as it didn’t do any harm.

Burgess: That’s right.

Gatewood: I guess that’s the tendency of the mind. If something works somewhere, you…[laughs]

Burgess: Well, a lot of times, you know yourself that your mind can play some tricks on you. Make you think something’s wrong with you when actually it isn’t. The doctor couldn’t find it to save your life, what you think’s wrong with you, when you let your mind get the upper hand on you.

Gatewood: You know, you hear people talking about doctors using pills with nothing in them but sugar. Just a, what is it?

Burgess: Uh− placebo.

Gatewood: Placebo. Right. Did you find that that was seem to be pretty, practiced quite often by doctors? If they had someone like that?

Burgess: We’ve had some of it, yes. And I think it was a good thing. I know a few instances where a person just had it in their mind that they just had to have this particular drug or else, there just wasn’t anything helping them, wasn’t going to do them any good. And the doctor knew it was doing them more harm than it was good. And he had changed it to something that, it wasn’t a sugar pill, a placebo tablet is made, there wasn’t anything in it that would be injurious or anything. And it helped them. And really and truly, that patient profited more than if he’d have continued to have given him that other that they were wanting. I don’t like to do anything like that because it’s not very good, looking at it in one sense of the word, it’s not a very good way of trying to fool somebody. Really, that’s not the purpose. The real purpose is just trying to get them off of something that you know is doing them more harm than good. And if it works, then I say it’s of some value.

Gatewood: On the other hand, the opposite of placebos would be those patent medicines that may have drugs in them that are harmful. Did you have to battle with that? Like things that would have codeine in them? I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. But I know when I was growing up, people would sometimes buy things that had drugs in them. I’m trying to think. Paregoric in them, that type of thing.

Burgess: Well, see, you can’t buy that no more.

Gatewood: Right.

Burgess: In .

Gatewood: Could you, in your early practice?

Burgess: Yes, you could buy it by signing up for it. But you had certain strict regulations on that.

Gatewood: Even in the early period?

Burgess: Yes. You had to keep, in other words, like if you came in, say you come in today and you were using it for a legitimate purpose. For upset stomach or stomach cramps or something like that, and you bought as much, you were allowed, I believe, it’s been some time since, I think you were allowed two ounces. In, I believe it was 48 hours. It’s been so long I can’t remember for sure. And you signed your name to it and your address and all, and what you got, and how much. Well now you couldn’t come in the next morning and get some more. Because I would know that even though the law didn’t say it, I would know that you didn’t need it. Cause if you took that much of it and come back the next morning, then I’d know something was wrong then. It was being used for other than what it was intended. Of course they had to let, they passed some laws, I don’t remember how long ago it’s been now. They got to abusing it. And they had to do something to take care of that situation. Which in one sense of the word, it was a good thing. And in another sense of the word, it really deprived them, the people that really used it legitimately for little aches and pains that you just commonly have. Stomach disorders like diarrhea and what not. It was very good for that. When they started abusing it, some of them, why, they had to make some changes. and that’s true with all your drugs anymore. That’s the reason why we’ve got so many regulations. Because of abuse of it. And it’s not, it’s not the pharmacists that’s abusing, causing abuse. You know as well as I do it’s being shipped in from all over the world. Various kinds, like your cocaine. I never seen cocaine in my life. But I hear about it being used a lot. And we never even had cocaine in school. A lot of those things we had, take for instance this marijuana. We had it in school. All I knew of it at that time was hemp. I never heard, I had never heard of marijuana until just recently. And we had it right there in the school. We knew what it would do. But I didn’t know it was marijuana. The only name we had was hemp. Which it is. They use it to make rope.

Gatewood: Sure. And it did have medicinal values about it, if you used it properly. Is that right?

Burgess: I don’t know whether it did or not. We never did have any, I never even saw it listed in any of the pharmacy books, as I can recall, of having any, I don’t think we discussed it in class, the fact that fibers were used for making hemp, or making rope. That’s about all I knew about it. I never heard of it being called marijuana until you know, just in the last few years, that you heard so much about it. That’s what’s the strangest thing. I don’t even know if the teachers knew it or not. If they did, they never did say anything about it.

Gatewood: It is strange. Drugs, it’s fascinating. Did you think this law, do you see an increase in where you said there’s more regulation, more regulation as time’s gone on from the period you’ve been involved. This, does this really does work a handicap on the druggist as far as being able to dispense it?

Burgess: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s an advantage to the druggist. Because even though we have these regulations on it like that, it’s advantageous to us in this respect. It more or less takes the responsibility off of you when it’s done according to the regulations. A lot of people that’s not in the drug business or anything, they don’t realize just how much a responsibility it is. They don’t, you see the druggist behind the counter there, it looks like he’s got an easy job. And as far as the labor’s concerned, it is easy. There’s nothing hard about it. But the mental part of it. That’s where it’s−

Gatewood: Keeping abreast of…

Burgess: −really does keep you in a kind of tense situation all the time. And just that mental phase of it.

Gatewood: And that’s true even, before, you were more involved with actually mixing things together. Now you’re just trying to stay up on the latest pharmaceuticals that are coming out.

Burgess: Right.

Gatewood: I guess either way it was mental.

Burgess: Yes. And there’s more responsibility, it seems like, on you anymore. And the same way with doctors. It’s almost getting to the point that you can’t do anything. Back then, it seemed to me, you had the freedom of practicing your profession. Now you don’t seem to have that freedom, because you’re just liable to be sued for something that’s, for no reason at all, really. And that makes it rough.

Gatewood: That’s what I was kind of getting at, I think. I can see how, your point that the regulations would take some of the responsibility off your shoulders. But I was just thinking, it seems like things have gotten so legal, it sort of takes, it takes too much away from the professional in terms of doing what, for fear that he will get sued or−

Burgess: Well, in that respect, looking at it from that standpoint, yes. It’s, you don’t feel as freely now to practice your profession like you once did. Or at least, I don’t feel that way. Cause it seems like it’s just too, too limited. When I first got out of school, whatever you thought was the best. And the same way with the doctor. Whatever he thought was best. Why then, the people accepted it. And it seemed to me like anymore, boy, if there’s any error was made, then you’re in for trouble. Even though you may sign papers, you know. What you think is relieving you of responsibility, you know what I’m talking about, when you go into a hospital, they ask you to sign this and sign that. Forget, you still have your problems. Especially the doctors. I don’t know of too many drugstores that have been sued for−

Gatewood: Of course, that’s probably the fact that they are so regulated. That’s protection.

Burgess: Well, that’s true. I mean, that’s one of the biggest advantages. I can cite you a story. Well, it’s not a story, it’s a true happening. I don’t know just how long ago it’s been. You see, used to you could buy iodine or anything like that in the grocery store, or the drugstore. Well, they changed that regulation, I don’t know how long ago it’s been now. But anyway, when you sell iodine or anything like that, you have to register on the poison register. Which it is a poison. They used to didn’t have regulations to govern it at that time. Anyhow, what I’m getting back to, this druggist had sold a young lady, she was a teenager, I guess. She came in to get some iodine. And he registered it, like he was supposed to, according to law. And lo and behold, that kid took it home and drank it and killed herself. And they sued him. And they about sent him up. Now if he hadn’t had registered that, according to those regulations that he was required to do, they would have sure had the grounds to do it. But that was the only thing that saved him. So I say regulations work pretty well. They’re for your own protection. Even though sometimes it makes it seem like you’ve got a burden on your back. But they’re still the best thing, I think.

Gatewood: What were some of the, if you could say in layman’s terms, some of the things that you put together for medicines that you dispensed in the early period that now come in already pre-done from the pharmaceutical firms. Of course, I know there are a lot of different drugs now than at that point. What were some of the things that you compounded in your drugstore in the early years when you got out of school?

Burgess: To be frankly honest about it, the medicine that you dispense now in comparison to when I got out of it, they don’t even use it anymore. It’s altogether different. I couldn’t even make any comparison as to what’s already prepared now and what we had to make at that time.

Gatewood: Well what were some of the things that you made at that time?

Burgess: Well, about the main thing, I guess, in what you’re speaking of, probably would have been ointments. I think, for instance, Dr. McLeod has a formula of his own that we used to make ourselves that had, uh, I can’t tell you the exact, all the ingredients, because I don’t recall all of them. It had zinc oxide, it had starch. That’s two that I can remember. It’s got about six items, and I can’t recall all of them. Well anyway, now, you’re having some of those same ingredients that we used then in a lot of your modern ointments that are already prepared for over the counter use. But they’re just, like I said, they’re just not too many things anymore that you’re having any comparison. Because most of your medicines now are synthetics. And it’s just altogether different. I guess in the last, there’s been a greater change, I guess in the last ten or fifteen years, to my knowledge, as there has been in the last thirty years.

Gatewood: Now tell me the difference between, you say synthetic, you mean inorganic compounds as opposed to organic substances?

Burgess: Well, no. Organic, we’re not speaking about synthetic. I mean those things that have been duplicated in the laboratories. Of, well, take the old medicines sometimes. Certain ways you prepared those medicines, you got certain things out of it. Well, let’s see. Take, for instance, the cocoa bean. You can prepare it from one type of preparation, where you maybe run it through what we call, used to call a percolator, like. You put the drug and run alcohol through it, or alcohol-water mixture, or just plain water. And you get certain extractors out of that drug that were water soluble, or alcohol soluble, or glycerin and alcohol soluble, or something like that, is altogether a different extraction from just that one drug. Okay? That’s what we had, that’s sort of the way we had to do it years ago in our laboratories at school. Okay? Now today, they make that same thing chemically. That’s what I meant when I said synthetically.

Gatewood: Without the bean?

Burgess: Yes. They can duplicate it in a chemical reaction that you had to, used to get it from a drug, just by various types of solvents.

Gatewood: That’s very interesting. I have to turn over here. It’s already blinking.

[End Tape One, Side B. Begin Tape Two, Side A]

Gatewood: Let’s talk a little bit about how you as a druggist here related to the doctors, and how the patients related to you and to the doctors. You were telling me about this incident that happened to you down at the theater. Would you tell me, tell that story again?

Burgess: Yeah, but let me get just a little ahead of that. Whenever I first come here, as I told you, Dr. Meece was instrumental in helping me get started here with the other doctors. Kind of helped me to get my feet on the ground. And our relationships with one another as time went on become very good. The doctors, after they got to know me better, again, had more confidence in what I was trying to do in a medical line. And which, in relation to their practice. And as I say, our relationship became very good. We began to depend on one another. And the little instance that happened, one night after work I’d gone down here to the theater and watched the show. And while I was in there, well, some fellow came in here and said, “I want you to go out to the house there. I’ve got a problem that I want you to take care of.” I said, “Well, I can’t do that. Mr. Meece that’s his line of work. You’d better go back up there and get him.” He said, “Well, I just come from up there and he sent me to get you.” I said, “Well, you’ll have to go back and see him.” He said, “Well, all right,” and he did. I don’t know what developed after that, though, really.

Gatewood: But you left out one thing. What did he call you when he, when he asked for you to go out and look after− Did he call you “doctor?”

Burgess: Yes, he called me that, too. A lot of people got to where they called me that. They called me “doctor.” But really, I’m not a doctor. And since I don’t have a doctor of pharmacy degree, I only have a bachelor of science in pharmacy, which was one of the higher degrees at that particular time when I got out of school.

Gatewood: Well this was the thing I was trying to establish. Now, Dr. Meece, for instance, he did not have a doctorate, either, really. Isn’t that true? In terms of formal education, what you’ve said? He had it through experience.

Burgess: He may have had a little schooling. I never did quite understand just what it was. But basically, he’s, the time that he practiced was over a period of years. And through the recommendation from another doctor, as I understood it, here in town, I know that a number of years, which was required in their profession, he was able to secure a license to practice, an MD. And the same is true with us. At the time I took my state board in pharmacy, we had some fellows there then that came under a different kind of a law than what I came under. Whereby they’d worked so many years in a drugstore, but then they, too, could take a special test. And if they passed it, they’d get a license that would be just like what I had. They would be free to practice pharmacy just like myself. But that was the last year they were able to do that. And our pharmacist schools at that time varied. They had a two years, not three. My class came to the four years. I had to go four years to pharmacy school. Plus two years’ apprenticeship before I could take my state boards and become licensed. Prior to that, before the laws changed, they could go two years and so much apprenticeship and so forth. If they obtained their license at that time.

Gatewood: Did you work under someone, when you were doing your internship, that had not been to formal school that long? Had secured his license through that process?

Burgess: I don’t know whether I worked with one that I took my internship under, how long they had gone to school. I know it wasn’t four years, because like I said, my class was the first four-year group. So they evidently went to pharmacy school a two-year or a three-year period, I wouldn’t know. I did work with a boy in Harriman, though, that under their laws at that particular time, if they worked so many years in a drugstore and then they went to a school down in , it was in where they had this school that they could go so many weeks. And then when they take, they could take the exam. If they passed it, they, too, could secure their license under their laws at that time. But all that now has been changed. About every state now has the same regulations. So that you could practice maybe in one state and have your license in this state. And you could reciprocate, then, with another state by paying a certain fee, whatever is required. Or you could go and take the test. Either one you wanted to do. That’s the way the situation is at the present time. So about all the states now are, have pretty much the same laws and regulations.

Gatewood: What intrigues me, and what I wonder about, why is it that there was no pharmacist here for so long a period of time of the nature you, like the fellow in or, in my boyhood, in ? Why didn’t they have someone that had been, because they didn’t have a drugstore, I guess. Right?

Burgess: Well, yes−

Gatewood: I mean, if you had gone, say you go into the , you certainly must have had pharmacists that had trained on someone and had gotten their license and were practicing earlier, you know. Without, why it didn’t happen here? Was it just that there wasn’t a drugstore, I guess?

Burgess: Well, I suppose, there was just a number of county seats when I got out of school that didn’t have a drugstore. And there are still some of them existing even today that don’t have drugstores. Why anyone hasn’t gone into those places, I don’t know. I don’t know what the reason. Just like, I reckon just like a lot of our counties. We’ve got some counties in that don’t have a doctor. I guess it’s the same situation. For some reason or other, druggists just didn’t figure they’d make a go of it. And just didn’t take the chance of going into these localities. That would be the only thing I could say about it. I saw the way it was when I come here, you know, I was more or less looking. I didn’t know whether I’d make a go of it here or not. Because as we spoke before, the situation wasn’t too good. This town, bad year when I started. And then everything seemed to be in comparison to the towns round and about, it seemed like it was going downhill instead of going uphill. But that has all changed now. Everything seems to be somewhat better than it was then. But yet, our economy now isn’t the best in the world at the present time. But we’re hoping it will be.

Gatewood: But you must have gotten really a good education not only in the university, but in this internship thing that gave you some real skills of how to run a business and how to organize. In order to have done as well as you did, through, as you say, a rather difficult period.

Burgess: Well, I attribute that more or less to these chain stores I work for. Most of these chains that you work for, even now, have an educational program. Whereby that you can learn the out front phase of pharmacy. You’re supposed to learn your other in school, back in the prescription department and so forth. But you learn a lot of just practical experience from these programs that they have in these chain stores. And they have some good ones, too.

Gatewood: And I guess some of the managers are not necessarily pharmacists, are they?

Burgess: Oh, no. I worked for a fellow in Lane, well, let’s see, I believe it was in Lane. The manager of this place wasn’t even a pharmacist. But they had a few pharmacists employed there besides myself. And that’s true in a lot of even our stores now. We have a lot of drugstores even in our state now that the pharmacists are not, I mean, the managers are not registered pharmacists.

Gatewood: So there is kind of a science of pharmacy, and then there’s an art to it, too, isn’t there? In terms of knowing the drugs and being able to manage them. But then there’s the how do you relate to the community, and how do you dispense the human part is kind of an art, I guess, isn’t it?

Burgess: Well, my philosophy has always been to do unto others as you’d have others do unto you. I feel like if, if a person wants to serve the public, then that’s what he’s supposed to do. I don’t care what kind of profession he’s in. That’s his obligation. He gets to the point where he don’t want to serve them, why he might just as well get out of it and get into something else. That’s the way I feel about it. Cause when you, especially in the medical phase of it, because people depend on you. And I feel like a fellow who don’t want to do that, why he don’t need to be in it. He better get into something else.

Gatewood: Why do you think the people called the local druggist a doctor? Dr. Burgess.

Burgess: I don’t know. I’ve often wondered that myself. But it’s always been that way, even when I was growing up. I called Mr. Dyer, at home, Doc Dyer. That’s all I ever knew him as. And other druggists that I knew, Tibbols and so forth, in , I always called them “doctor.” That’s what everybody else called them. And I assumed that they were doctors just like MDs. But I didn’t know that till after I got through pharmacy school. [laughs] And I reckon that’s the−

Gatewood: Can you think of anything about your experience over the years here, relating to some of the people that you served, like we were talking about the guy that wanted you to come out and help him, anything that you remember in your work with people?

Burgess: Well, I don’t know whether I can pinpoint anything other than that.

Gatewood: Did you subject yourself to call in case of an emergency? To go and help somebody, to go down to the store and get something out?

Burgess: Oh, yes. That’s to me just as important a service as anything I know of. If a person needed medicine, even if it’s for veterinary use for the stock or anything like that. They would ask me to help them with that. Prescribing something for their hogs or cattle or anything else, and which we done. Cause we didn’t have a veterinarian in this county. We had a man several years ago, fellow by the name of Keane, had done a lot of that veterinary work. And he wasn’t a licensed veterinarian, but he had done it all his life. With his father, and his father before him. And he just grew up with it. And he come in, oh, any number of times. And said, “I’ve got this problem,” and he wanted me to help him mix up some medicine to take care of the situation. Of course I had my books there, and I’d go look it up so I’d know what I was doing. But I hadn’t anything, that veterinary medicine. But he knew pretty much himself about stock. And the same way with people. I never did like to prescribe anything, not being an MD, you know, and not knowing the problem. Of course anybody would come in and want something for a problem with pain or something. They come in with a headache or something like that, I could give them something for that without being out of order, I think. Which, that’s pretty much true in all our branches of pharmacy. Just if the person just wants something for some common ailments, we can help them out in that respect. But we don’t prescribe. That’s not our business. We’re just not doctors. And that’s just the way I feel about it. I think that’s a doctor’s, that’s what he studies, and I think that’s his prerogative. And I don’t think that druggists have got any right to interfere with anybody else’s profession. And he should feel the same way, that they shouldn’t interfere with your profession.

Gatewood: Well legally, you can’t, nobody can prescribe, can they, formally?

Burgess: No. Because we’re just not trained in that. I kind of liken it to a situation that I had one time. Of course, I don’t know how, I don’t know how the situation arose. But this, something happened, you know, somebody had told a patient about, they asked them about a medication, and then they told him what it was used for. But it so happened that the doctor had given it to them for a different reason. And that’s one thing I won’t tell anybody what a medicine’s used for, because so many of our medicines this day and time are used for so many different purposes. That you might tell them one thing, and you’d be correct. Yet the doctor may have given the patient, given it to him for something else. And therefore, it don’t leave a very good taste in either one’s mouth, you know, something like that. And I don’t think, that’s one reason why I say that the person shouldn’t prescribe anything. Because it’s−

Gatewood: This person had brought, the story you telling, they had brought in a prescription that had been used for another, had been prescribed by a doctor and they wanted you to fill that for a different person, for what they thought was a common ailment? Is that what they did?

Burgess: No. No. What happened, the doctor prescribed something, this medication. And the person just wanted to know what it was used for. Evidently, the doctor didn’t tell them.

Gatewood: I see.

Burgess: Really what the person, what the person should have said, should have asked him, asked him what the problem was. And then they could have told him yes or no, what it really, the way it was, this person just wanted to know what the drug was used for. And like I said, a lot of these drugs got so many different uses that you might tell them one thing, and the doctor may have told them, gave it to them for something else. And that’s what happened in this case. The person, the individual told them what the drug was used for, but he didn’t happen to name the reason for what the doctor had given it to him for, which it was used for that, also. So the patient got the wrong idea that the doctor had given him something that he said wasn’t the matter with him. [laughs] So the doctor got upset about it. And that’s the reason why I told you that I just wouldn’t tell anybody what the drug was used for because a lot of times they have so many different uses. You’re just running into a problem then.

Gatewood: Well how about a person like, say, reading about and asking about this nun that’s out here starting this clinic. Now she has a degree in pharmacy. And, I think, a degree in nursing. But under the present system, she could not prescribe medicine. Is that correct? She could not prescribe, make a prescription, write a prescription out.

Burgess: No, there’s nobody. There’s nobody can do that but an MD. They don’t want you to write prescriptions.

Gatewood: That makes sense.

Burgess: I mean, that I’m acquainted with. There may be− well, that’s all I know, it would have to be a medical doctor, as far as I know. That’s the only one that can write prescriptions. Or prescribe, either.

Gatewood: It seems to me that−

Burgess: Well, of course your dentist can. You see, under certain−

Gatewood: Your dentist can under certain restraints.

Burgess: Yes. Under certain things, yes. Pertaining to their particular profession. They can’t prescribe something for you for heart trouble. Because they’re not an MD.

Gatewood: It seems that the doctor and the pharmacist have to be very, very closely related in a matter of trust and knowing limitations on both counts. And you said in your early training that you didn’t actually work with doctors in, especially in hospitals.

Burgess: No. No. Not like they do now.

Gatewood: And that the doctors here, if I remember earlier, you said on the tape that some of them were not accustomed to writing prescriptions as you’d been taught in school. They knew what they needed, but they didn’t know how to communicate it on paper to you.

Burgess: Yes. I was getting back to that. I saw this, I forgot about it. When I was in school, there where I roomed , we had some boys that studied medicine along, and it’s three or four of us that were pharmacists, studying pharmacy. That roomed in this place, you see. And when these boys, and when these boys in medical school, came to the part of their training in school of writing prescriptions, they didn’t know a thing in the world about it. So they had to come in and let us show them how to do it.

Gatewood: A little informal education. [laughs]

Burgess: That really wasn’t a whole off their line, really. That’s more or less the pharmacist’s responsibility. The doctor knows what he wants, and he knows how to get it. But a lot of times, you have to direct them in writing a prescription and so forth. As a matter of fact, I don’t know how it is now. But I know these boys, when we were rooming together, they said, the fellows that, “We don’t, we know the least about drugs as anybody, because we don’t study that. We study how they use them, and what they’re used, and what they’ll do. But as far as about the drug itself, we don’t know, we know very little about the ingredients. The composition of them. We don’t study that.” And I can understand that. He said, “That’s what you fellows are supposed to know.” And that’s true. We’re supposed to know more about drugs than a doctor.

Gatewood: Well that’s certainly true you should know more. But it seems like a doctor would need some general orientation to it so that he can−

Burgess: Well, he knows how it’s used. I mean, how it’s used in the body, and what it will do. And all phases of that. But as far as the composition, they don’t have any reason to know whether it’s made from aspirin or made from something else, the chemical structure of it. They don’t really, it’s not really necessary. They probably teach them that now. But back then, they didn’t know because these boys had to ask us. They come and studied with us.

Gatewood: They had had botany, I guess. But they hadn’t made the−

Burgess: I don’t know whether they had botany or not.

Gatewood: That’s interesting. Well now these doctors that were here, you’ve mentioned Dr. Meece, which you’re not sure exactly how much education he had in terms of formal education. But were most of the doctors graduate MDs? Or had some others, had experience and some training and then passed the board?

Burgess: I think the, I don’t know about all of them now, really. Some of them I do. Dr. Williams, he was a, I’ve forgotten where he graduated, what medical school. Dr. Simpson, I believe Dr. Simpson told me he graduated from the . And Dr. Haley, I don’t know where he finished. He was a graduate, but I don’t know where. Dr. Meese had taken training, but I mean, I don’t know just how for, because, I never did understand too much about the laws, you know, of medicine. I mean, of the MD, like I do drugs.

Gatewood: Well I know I’ve come across doctors that have practiced, particularly in the thirties and forties, which may have been a little before your time. But in , I know there were doctors, they were called country doctors, who had not had any formal training whatsoever. They just were self-educated, and practiced with a doctor until the point they were, I think, I’m not even sure whether they were licensed. But they did practice medicine.

Burgess: Well they had been licensed, I’m sure, under some regulation.

Gatewood: Well I got this from Dr. Duncan, who’s a doctor in the county, that they were, in , that they were−

Burgess: You know Dr. Duncan?

Gatewood: I’ve talked to him. And he says, he named a couple of people. And I had earlier talked, knew of these people, because some other people I talked to knew of them. That practiced around the area some kind of, the county there that joins this county, there was a, and I can’t think of the doctor’s name now. I think a Dr. John Hall or something, that practiced there for a long time. And I believe Dr. Duncan told me that he had never, never been licensed, actually licensed. But he was accepted in the community as a doctor. And I wonder, what I wonder is, the thing that I was wondering about, could he have written prescriptions to the local pharmacist in , or not?

Burgess: Yes, if he was licensed.

Gatewood: I’m not sure if, apparently he wasn’t licensed. Now some, I know, may have been…licensed. But I don’t believe this fellow was even licensed. But he’d practiced a long time in that area.

Burgess: Well, they may have had laws back then. I don’t know, see. Sort of like I was telling you about these pharmacists. These three boys that I knew of that were taking this test when I was there, they’d never gone to school in their lives. But they’d worked in a drugstore for all their lives, just about. And our laws in our profession at that time, which was, that was the last year that it was permitted, that they could take a test. And if they passed it, then they would automatically have a license that would be just as equal to mine. And they may have been the same way in medicine. I just don’t know about that. Cause I’m quite certain, you know, you go way back there, I don’t know how old some of these medical schools are. I don’t know how old the of ’s is. The only one we’ve had in the state of till the University of Kentucky Med School. And that was back during the war, before the war. Same way as . Vanderbilt was the only medical school in until World War II broke out. Then we had the University of Tennessee Med School. And I think there are one or two others down in now. And ’s got, uh, ’s got three or four med schools down there. And I think has. I think there’s one in and−

Gatewood: .

Burgess: Emory. Yes. Now Emory’s one of the old schools.

Gatewood: Yes. It’s probably equivalent to U of L and Vanderbilt, probably. In you know, making…within the state.

Burgess: See that was sort of like it was whenever I was talking about. I wanted to study to be a doctor. And at that time, they were trying to keep the doctors kind of, you know, regulated. And they just wouldn’t accept so many. And of course when World War II broke out, and they needed more doctors for the army, they were able to establish more medical schools. And consequently, we have more doctors. And regulations were sort of eased then.

Gatewood: To supply the need to−

Burgess: The same way about pharmacy school. I don’t know, when I went to school there at the Louisville College of Pharmacy, as I understood it, the tuition that was paid was all the income those schools had. They weren’t even, state, I don’t even think even supplied the money for it, as I understood it. And there wasn’t too many, our class was the biggest class they had up there forever, when we graduated. We started out with thirty. Ended up with fifteen. Knocked off half of the class just after the second year. Of course, they weed you out. And then we picked up some more boys, and they got into the junior class, some of them that failed, and I think our class finally did end up with thirty of them.

Gatewood: That’s real interesting. I think we−

[End Tape Two, Side A. End Session.]