In the 1880s two young American salesmen-cum-pharmacists, Silas Mainville Burroughs and Henry Wellcome, invented the ‘tabloid’. It was not a cut-down newspaper but a form of compressed pill — the name was an elision of ‘tablet’ and ‘alkaloid’ — which they imported to Britain. Helped by its sales, their company Burroughs Wellcome achieved huge success: insulin was another of their inventions, while Henry Wellcome created the first proper medical bags, giving them to Stanley for his trips to Africa and Scott for his walk to the Pole.
When Sir Henry Wellcome (as he became) died in 1936, he left a fortune which he asked five trustees to distribute for the improvement of human and animal health. Through canny investment, the Wellcome Trust is today the world’s biggest medical charity (just beating the Gates Foundation) with funds worth £14 billion. Over the past two decades the portfolio has seen average returns of around 15 per cent; returns from its venture capital interests have averaged 90 per cent over ten years.
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