The mortar and pestle, traditional symbol of the apothecary’s calling and often used as the sign of his shop, was to be found in Williamsburg shops in many sizes and materials. The largest recorded was a bell-metal mortar and iron pestle belonging to Dr. Thomas Wharton and weighing 168 pounds. Wharton also owned a large marble mortar and pestle, two small ones of marble, and a “Porphrey Stone & Muller.” Later in the century, as the medical profession learned that toxic quantities of metal dust could come from the use of metal mortars, ceramic and glass became widely used. Glass and ceramic containers by the hundreds were also used to store simple ingredients and compounds for sale. Dr. Pasteur at one time, for instance, ordered 246 white glass vials ranging in capacity from two drams to twelve ounces. Dr. Alexander Middleton, whose tory sympathies cost him his Williamsburg shop and contents during the Revolution, listed more than fifty dozen bottles, from one ounce size to two gallons, along with dozens of pill pots, ointment pots, and syrup pots. Glass seems to have been the most common type of container, with earthenware “gallipots” probably second. Among the articles with which the Williamsburg shop is furnished are a number that belonged to the first Dr. Galt that have been obtained from his descendants or generously loaned by them to Colonial Williamsburg. The largest is the secretary-bookcase that stands in the back office, the most numerous are the scores of glass bottles and cardboard pillboxes that cluster on one section of the shelves, and perhaps the most interesting are his diplomas in anatomy, surgery, and midwifery that hang on the wall. Vying with the last name is the account book displaying a charge of 7 shillings against Patrick Henry—but no entry to show that the bill was ever paid. It would require more space than is here available to describe, or even to list, all the articles in the shop today, and to identify all the drugs, herbs, powders, and compounds that would have been contained in the numerous bottles, jars, boxes, and drawers of the shop. The quantity and variety, however, may be taken as typical of a well provided apothecary shop of colonial America. One should note in particular the surgical instruments in their velvet-lined cases. These have been collected from various sources—including one case of lancets and a set of scales from the Galt family—and are of the period. Dr. Alexander Middleton claimed to have been deprived in the Revolution of instruments for amputating, trepanning, lithotomy, cupping, couching, dissecting, dentistry, and midwifery. The estate of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie of Williamsburg inventoried three sets of instruments for amputating, trepanning, and lithotomy.