[Brocades and Stheeman: from apothecary-manufacturer to pharmaceutical industry]

In the middle of the nineteenth century, vegetable products were the most important raw material for the pharmaceutical industry. That industry was a "pharmacist-industry" and the quality of their products was defined in the official pharmacopoeias. Eisso Post Stheeman was one of these pharmacists and although he was a producer of medicines he stayed a pharmacist between pharmacists. He communicated with them about the quality of medicines in terms of pureness, identity and preparation. His successor, Sypko Stheeman, went into his fathers steps. He too was primarily a pharmacist; only after that a producer of (vegetable) drugs. Still there was a difference between them. Sypko focussed more on commerce and production of medicines. To that end price-lists were published from 1878 onwards. These price-lists became an important medium of communication between manufacturer and pharmacist. The introduction of the steam engine in 1894 represents a turning-point. Steam energy made many new activities possible, and the production of medicines and dispensation forms became possible on a much larger scale. The development that had set in with the introduction of steam energy was completed in the years between 1901 and 1914. Production of medicines grew enormously, but an important renewal was the production of tablets. Millions of them left the factory in Meppel every day. At the same time, the firm strived to give each of the produced medicines its own identity. Brocades and Stheeman not only introduced "specialities", but chemical drugs, produced by others, were being marketed under the label of B S as well. Gradually, the standard of pharmacist-quality had been replaced by Broacades and Stheeman-quality.