Vintage 1951 Dr. A.C. Daniels Dog Vermi‑Kap Medicine Box 🏛️ Boston Veterinary History

How Were Boston Dogs Wormed in 1951? 🏛️ Vintage Dr. A.C. Daniels Dog Vermi-Kap Medicine Box

Size: 3 5/8" x 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"

🐶 Shiny silver board printed in deep blue, a portrait of a moustached gentleman in a bow tie, and DOG VERMI-KAP for "the destruction and expulsion of large Round-worms (Ascarids) and Hookworms." It's an unused dog wormer carton from Dr. A. C. Daniels, Inc. of Boston, with a little bulldog roundel on one side and a cat on the other.

🔍 What's On It

The face reads DR. A. C. DANIELS' over the portrait, then DOG VERMI-KAP, Active Ingredient: Tetrachlorethylene (Each Capsule contains 8 minims), the roundworm and hookworm line, Medium and Large Breed DOGS, Contents 8 Capsules, and across the foot, DISTRIBUTED BY DR. A. C. DANIELS, INC., BOSTON, MASS. U.S.A. The side panel tells you to read the directions on the enclosed bottle label and to use PUPPY VERMI-KAPS for puppies and CAT VERMI-KAPS for cats and kittens, under a blue triangle with the DOG REMEDIES bulldog roundel. The other side has the CAT REMEDIES roundel. On the end flap is a little printer's globe with 5-4-51 printed under it, which is why we call these 1951.

👨‍⚕️ Dr. A. C. Daniels and His Face on the Box

That portrait isn't just decoration. In his 1892 booklet of veterinary medicines, Dr. Daniels wrote that his portrait "appears on every package of my medicine," because imitators were dressing up their products to look like his, and "none are genuine without the portrait." Back then his office and laboratory was a four-story building at 55 Portland Street in Boston. He was born in 1852, and the company says he got his start mixing remedies for horses and cows during barn calls, out of the back of his buggy, before founding the business in 1878. By 1907 the firm was at Milk and Central Streets, calling itself the largest maker of home veterinary medicines in the world, with agents from San Francisco to London, Montreal and Belize, and a "complete line of dog medicines."

In 1914 the business was bought by Charles C. Rogers and Nellie Kidder, and the Rogers family owned it until 1954, so this 1951 carton comes from their Boston years. The product line moved to Webster, Massachusetts, in 1959, and the Dr. Daniels name is still around today, selling catnip toys. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History even keeps one of the company's old metal advertising signs.

🧪 What Was in a Vermi-Kap

Tetrachlorethylene was the hookworm cure of its day. In 1925 the government veterinarian Maurice C. Hall showed it worked against hookworm, and it went on to play a big part in wiping out hookworm disease in the United States. It's the same chemical dry cleaners later used, known as "perc." Each capsule held 8 minims, about half a milliliter.

📏 Details

• Vintage dog wormer carton, 8 capsules, medium and large breed dogs
• Boston, with printer's code 5-4-51 on the end flap
• Silver board printed in blue; empty, unused, New Old Stock
• About 3 5/8" x 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"
• You'll get one carton like the ones shown

🖼️ It's a great little piece for a veterinarian's office, a dog lover's shelf, or a collection of old Boston medicine packaging.