Abbott, like most recent medical students, had no money, but he did have an adventurous spirit. Dodge, was Ravenswood’s primary physician and ran a pharmacy, as well, but he had fallen ill and wanted to sell the whole shebang-the practice and the drug store-to a worthy candidate for the special one-time-only discount price of $1,000. C.’s dissatisfaction in his current role-informed him of a possible job opportunity in the far western “frontier village” of Ravenswood, just north of Chicago. Who Ravens Wouldn’t?Ī family friend of the Abbotts by the name of Fred C.
His life may have carried on in that trajectory if not for one of those always convenient twists of fate. He eventually earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan at the age of 28, and got his first gig as a traveling physician’s assistant back home in Vermont immediately after. Luther Abbott, grizzled New England farmer, finally gave in with a grunt and a nod.ĭriven to catch up on lost time, Wallace Abbott went back to school in his 20s, enrolled in a couple local academies, then got into Dartmouth College at a cheetah’s pace. “Let the boy get his degree,” she told her husband. It was only the intervention of Abbott’s mother, Wealtha, that finally re-opened that door to higher learning more than five years later. Despite excelling in school, his father deemed young Wallace’s education complete by age 14, sending him to full-time work on the family farm. Abbott was born in Bridgewater, Vermont, in 1857-a thick-necked but progressive minded kid out of step with his immediate barnyard surroundings. And whether you perceive them as a great leader and innovator in life-saving medications, or emblematic of the evil rise of Big Pharma, one thing cannot be debated-the whole thing wouldn’t exist without the efforts of one small-time Chicago doctor in the 1890s a stubborn and visionary fella named Wallace C.
Today, Abbott Laboratories and its sister company AbbVie employ upwards of 90,000 people in over 150 countries, with profits topping $20 billion annually. As a result, even as hundreds of other early drug companies were vanquished during the quackery purges of the 20th century, Abbott managed to survive and thrive-overcoming no shortage of attacks and skepticism in the process. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL Įstablished during the “Wild West” era of the pharmaceutical industry-when everybody and their brother seemed to have a cure-all potion to peddle-Chicago’s Abbott Alkaloidal Company managed to strike a unique, calculated balance between carnival-barker salesmanship and scientific legitimacy. Made by: Abbott Labs / Abbott Alkaloidal Co., 4753 N.
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