Friedrich Adolf Richter

Richter was born on 12 May 1846 in Herford in Germany, the son of a master baker. In 1876 the Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt granted him permission to build a chemical-pharmaceutical factory in the princely residence town of Rudolstadt, where he had already been operating as a manufacturer of proprietary medicines.

Patent medicine business

By 1873 Richter had founded his first factory in Nuremberg, producing gingerbread (Lebkuchen). It was only in 1876, with the opening of "F. Ad. Richter & Cie." in Rudolstadt, that his product line expanded to include pharmaceutical preparations; from the outset the Rudolstadt firm's range was highly diversified, spanning pharmaceuticals, chocolate, gingerbread, confectionery, children's toys, and — in time — music automatons, music boxes, and mechanical phonograph records, most of it marketed under the "Anker" (Anchor) brand. His flagship pharmaceutical product was the analgesic liniment marketed as "Anker-Pain-Expeller," sold for the relief of rheumatism, gout, and neuralgia.

According to a 2017 peer-reviewed historical account by anesthesiologist George S. Bause, published in the American Society of Anesthesiologists' Wood Library-Museum "Reflections" series in Anesthesiology, Richter falsely claimed to hold a Doctor of Medicine degree from a "University of Philadelphia" that did not exist, and sold his remedies by mail order within Germany through a pharmacy that also did not exist, in violation of German pharmaceutical law. In 1907, analytical pharmacists determined that the Pain Expeller consisted of chili, black, and guinea peppers "doctored" with galangal root, astringent rhatany, and oils of thyme, clove, rosemary, and lavender. Despite this, Richter died in 1910 as one of Germany's ten wealthiest citizens.

Business

Under Richter, F. Ad. Richter & Cie grew into an international manufacturer of toys and proprietary medicines. By the time of his death in 1910 the firm's headquarters and main factory remained in Rudolstadt, with additional factories in Vienna (where its Anchor Stone building blocks were also produced, alongside a sales branch at Nibelungengasse 4) and, on a smaller scale, in New York and at Sablino near Saint Petersburg, together with further branch offices in Berlin, Konstein, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Olten, Prague, Rotterdam, and St. Petersburg; several earlier branches in Bilthoven, Brussels, London, and Reims had closed within a few years of opening. The firm held the title of k.u.k. Hof- und Kammerlieferant (Imperial and Royal Purveyor) to the Austro-Hungarian court and supplied several other European royal households; Anchor-brand toys were used in the nurseries of numerous European royal families. The firm's Anker trademark also covered a line of gramophones and shellac phonograph records marketed as Anker-Record, sold until the business was divested amid the First World War, after Richter's death.