e almanac, along with other advertising innovations. The
patent-medicine business, however, represented merely one of his
wide-ranging interests; he was also a co-owner of vessels plying the
Great Lakes, a publisher, and a dabbler in such occult arts as
Mesmerism, Phrenology, and Morse's theory of the electric telegraph. In
1855 he appeared as the proprietor of the _Daily Republic_, and it was
perhaps his growing involvement in publishing that led him to turn his
drug business over to Moore.

While we know this much about Moore's antecedents, a very considerable
mystery remains. If Moore was the proprietor of his own apparently
prosperous drug and medicine business in Buffalo in 1854, with White as
one of his clerks, how did it happen that in the following year White
represented himself to the Comstocks as the sole owner of Dr. Morse's
(Moore's) Indian Root Pills? And Moore, although he initially disputed
this claim, left his own business in Buffalo and ultimately joined White
and the Comstocks, not even in the capacity of a partner, but merely as
an employee.

These events would seem, however, to date the origin of the Indian Root
Pills fairly closely. Moore was already manufacturing them in Buffalo
prior to White's initial agreement with the Comstocks, but as he did not
mention them by name in his _Commercial Advertiser_ announcement in
1854, it is a fair presumption that the pills were new at this time. But
they must have caught on very rapidly to induce the Comstocks to enter a
partnership with White, under his name, when he contributed only the
Indian Root Pills but no cash or other tangible assets.

[Illustration: FIGURE 7.--Wrapper for Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills,
A.J. White & Co., sole proprietor.]

[Illustration: FIGURE 8.--Indian Root Pill labels: _a_, original used
by Moore, the originator of the pills; _b_, initial label used by A.J.
White & Co. under Comstock ownership, 1855-1857; _c_, revised label
adopted by Comstocks in June 1857 after Moore changed the color of his
label to blue; _d_, label adopted by Moore and White for selling in
competition with the Comstocks, 1859. Obviously printed from the same
plate as _c_, but with an additional signature just above the Indian on
horseback; _e_, new label adopted by the Comstocks after the departure
of Moore and White; _f_, label used in the final years of the business;
_g_, label, in Spanish, used in final years for export trade to Latin
America.]

Whil