Hundreds of manufacturers of proprietary remedies flourished during the 1880s and 1890s the Druggists' Directory for 1895 lists approximately 1,500. The great majority of these factories were much smaller than Comstock; one suspects, in fact, that most of them were no more than backroom enterprises conducted by untrained, but ambitious, druggists who, with parttime help, mixed up some mysterious concoctions and contrived imaginative advertising schemes.
"History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills"
Robert B. Shaw
But here, as I was going to say, is the phoenix of all porcelain ware-the ne plus ultra of perfection-what I have kept in my backroom, concealed from all eyes, until your Ladyship shall pronounce upon it.
"Marriage"
Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
"The last I remember of that story I was in the backroom of a saloon tryin' to write it.
"The Lash"
Olin L. Lyman