Charles Pfizer

Pfizer had apprenticed as a pharmacist in Ludwigsburg before emigrating to New York, and in 1849 he and his cousin Charles Erhart, a confectioner, opened a chemicals business in Brooklyn with a loan from Pfizer's father. Their first hit was a worm medicine made palatable with almond toffee, combining the two men's skills. Civil War demand for painkillers and antiseptics grew it, and the name is now on one of the world's largest drug companies.