The category of Medicines and Cures Bottles is probably the largest and are similar to liquor bottles. Patent Medicines and Cures Bottle contents were not typically carbonated which demanded heavier glass. They also have a narrow neck and mouth which was most useful for pouring out the typically liquid contents. Also a narrow neck likely limited evaporation through or around the mouth sealing cork.
A patent medicine was one whose formula was registered with the U.S. Patent Office, which opened in 1790. Not all medicines were patented, since the maker was required to reveal the medicine's content. After the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1907 most of these patent medicine companies went out of business.
Allaben & Torrance Palace Drug Store Bottle Rochelle, Illinois
Patent Medicines and Cures bottles also includes druggist prescription bottles issued by a pharmacy or drugstore due to their close connection. Most of the many thousands of local druggists during the 1800s and early 1900s typically concocted their own compounds to sell from their stores utilizing their own embossed druggist or prescription bottles. Many of these bottles with the druggist or store name plus the address, city and state, and product information. There were likely thousands of different embossed druggist bottles made in the mid to late 1800s and up to the 1920s.
