Gibson records[147] that between April 19 and May 3, 1778, the commands of Generals Patterson, Leonard, Poor, Glover, Scott, and Woodward turned in their medicine chests to Apothecary Cutting at Yellow Springs, and that every regiment received a standardized field box containing a definite list and quantity of necessary drugs and supplies. However, it appears likely that the project started by Cutting and continued by Craigie was not completed until late June at the earliest.[148] The "invoice of those things thought essential for the protection and health of soldiers in the field or camp" presented by Gibson[149] is actually an "Invoice of a Chest of medicines &c. compleated in the medicinal Store, N[orthern] D[epartmen]t for Thos. Tillotson Esq."[150] Inasmuch as the plan used in the Northern Department was employed by both Craigie and Cutting, the items on this invoice may serve as a reasonably good picture of the medicine chests of '78 as compared with those of '76 (see page 130). One of the reasons for better supplies at a time when other conditions were even worse than they were in 1776 is the fact that Congress was advancing sizable, if not always completely adequate, amounts of money for the cash purchase of supplies instead of seeking credit or expecting those responsible to procure supplies by using their personal money and waiting on Congress to reimburse them. During 1778, Congress advanced some $940,000 to Purveyor General Potts alone for the exclusive use of the hospital department, and these funds were in turn distributed to the proper medical procurement officers, including the apothecaries. It is significant to compare the sum of $1,095,000 provided by Congress in 1778 with L10,000 (about $27,000) which, according to Morgan, was the limit for medical and hospital supplies in 1776.[151] True, inflation had set in by 1778, and the value of money had declined greatly. For example, cantharides purchased from the Marshalls' apothecary shop in Philadelphia in 1776 cost 10 shillings per pound as compared with the cantharides Craigie purchased in Baltimore in 1778 at L20 per pound. However, the worst of the inflation was yet to come.[152] In Summary Initially the drug supplies for the American Revolutionary Army had come from stocks largely in the hands of private druggists. However, this source of supply was totally inadequate for a war that attained such proportions as the Revolution. Even if stocks of drugs in the Colonies had been far greater than they were, there is little reason to believe that shortages would not have developed. After all, a good many of the suppliers were Loyalists, and others were indifferent to the cause of American liberty. Even the most patriotic pharmacists were faced with a complete financial suicide, caught between a spiraling inflation and a Congress that had no money and only a promise for the future.