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  • Medicine chest including bottles
  • Medicine bottles, 18th century.
  • Medicine bottles, 18th century.
  • Photograph: Medicine Chest containing bottles
  • Medicine bottles, late 16th early 17th century.
  • Medicine bottles, 19th century. Recessed gilded label, Varnished gilded label, brown edged.
  • A black physician, holding a pulse watch, with medicine bottles. Wood engraving, 18--.
  • An invalid strapped into a special chair, next to him is a table full of medicine bottles. Coloured lithograph.
  • An ailing old man surrounded by medicine bottles and cases moans that his doctor has not given him enough medicine. Colour process print after J-A. Faivre, 1902.
  • A collection of 'anti-boche' - ie. anti-German - medicine bottles, next to a scorpion about to be pulverised. Lithograph.
  • A disgruntled gouty man with all limbs bandaged, a table covered in medicine bottles is next to him. Coloured lithograph by H. Heath.
  • Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth, as a doctor admitting that he mislabelled medicine bottles; referring to misgovernment of Ireland and Scotland. Pencil drawing, ca. 180-.
  • A doctor visiting a sick child who is surrounded by medicine bottles, his mother waits in the background. Process print after H.M. Bateman, 1911.
  • A figure comprised of medicine bottles and tablets, representing the patent medicine business, dances behind a pensive Lloyd George; representing attitudes to the introduction of the National Insurance Act of 1911. Wood engraving by B. Partridge, 1912.
  • A figure comprised of medicine bottles and tablets, representing the patent medicine business, dances behind a pensive Lloyd George; representing attitudes to the introduction of the National Insurance Act of 1911. Wood engraving by B. Partridge, 1912.
  • Labelled bottles for proprietary medicines
  • An analgesic pill in a medicine bottle. Colour lithograph by Donald Brun, 1950.
  • Henry Addington, Lord Sidmouth, holding a bottle of medicine. Coloured etching by C. Williams, 1807.
  • Three women huddle eagerly around a medicine bottle; perhaps connected with pregnancy. Mezzotint by T. Scratchley, 1771.
  • A man in pyjamas restored to health holding a bottle of the medicine Plasma Phosphatado. Colour lithograph, 1917.
  • A red medicine bottle in blue wrapping, attractive but unable to cure gonorrhoea. Colour lithograph after D. Fellnagel, 1943 (?).
  • A woman offers a watermelon to a sick man; he is cured and both start dancing; she holds up a medicine bottle. Coloured lithograph, 1890.
  • The piazza outside St Paul's church, Covent Garden, London, full of people selling their wares: a man is holding a placard advertising the products of Doctor Rock, a medicine vendor, and is holding up a bottle of the medicine. Engraving by W. Hogarth, 1738.
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla : The deacon: "Land sake Liza, the very sight of that bottle makes me feel like another man" : Ayers Sarsaparilla is a compound concentrated extract- the strongest, best, cheapest blood medicine / Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.
  • Ayer's Sarsaparilla : The deacon: "Land sake Liza, the very sight of that bottle makes me feel like another man" : Ayers Sarsaparilla is a compound concentrated extract- the strongest, best, cheapest blood medicine / Dr. J.C. Ayer & Co.
  • A shelf of bottles containing medicinal chemicals, with dried herbs suspended from a hook. Watercolour by Lucy Pierce.
  • A syringe with a bottle of liquid and a warning about the dangers of medicinal and recreational drugs and AIDS; an advertisement by the State of California AIDS Education Campaign. Lithograph.
  • Papaver somniferum L. Papaveraceae Opium Poppy Distribution: Asia minor, but has been dated to 5000BC in Spanish caves. Now grows almost everywhere. The oldest medicine in continuous use, described in the Ebers' papyrus (1550 BC), called Meconium, Laudanum, Paregoric and syrup of poppies. Culpeper (1650) on Meconium '...the juyce of English Poppies boyled till it be thick' and 'I am of the opinion that Opium is nothing else but the juyce of poppies growing in hotter countries, for such Opium as Authors talk of comes from Utopia.[he means an imaginary land, I suspect]’]. He cautions 'Syrups of Poppies provoke sleep, but in that I desire they may be used with a great deal of caution and wariness...' and warns in particular about giving syrup of poppies to children to get them to sleep. The alkaloids in the sap include: Morphine 12% - affects ?-opioid receptors in the brain and causes happiness, sleepiness, pain relief, suppresses cough and causes constipation. Codeine 3% – mild opiate actions – converted to morphine in the body. Papaverine, relaxes smooth muscle spasm in arteries of heart and brain, and also for intestinal spasm, migraine and erectile dysfunction. Not analgesic. Thebaine mildly analgesic, stimulatory, is made into oxycodone and oxymorphone which are analgesics, and naloxone for treatment of opiate overdose – ?-opioid receptor competitive antagonist – it displaces morphine from ?-opioid receptors, and constipation caused by opiates. Protopine – analgesic, antihistamine so relieves pain of inflammation. Noscapine – anti-tussive (anti-cough). In 2006 the world production of opium was 6,610 metric tons, in 1906 it was over 30,000 tons when 25% of Chinese males were regular users. The Opium wars of the end of the 19th century were caused by Britain selling huge quantities of Opium to China to restore the balance of payments deficit. Laudanum: 10mg of morphine (as opium) per ml. Paregoric: camphorated opium tincture. 0.4mg morphine per ml. Gee’s Linctus: up to 60 mg in a bottle. J Collis Browne’s chlorodyne: cannabis, morphine, alcohol etc. Kaolin and Morph. - up to 60 mg in a bottle. Dover’s Powders – contained Ipecacuana and morphine. Heroin is made from morphine, but converted back into morphine in the body (Oakeley, 2012). One gram of poppy seeds contains 0.250mgm of morphine, and while one poppy seed bagel will make a urine test positive for morphine for a week, one would need 30-40 bagels to have any discernible effect. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Papaver somniferum L. Papaveraceae Opium Poppy Distribution: Asia minor, but has been dated to 5000BC in Spanish caves. Now grows almost everywhere. The oldest medicine in continuous use, described in the Ebers' papyrus (1550 BC), called Meconium, Laudanum, Paregoric and syrup of poppies. Culpeper (1650) on Meconium '...the juyce of English Poppies boyled till it be thick' and 'I am of the opinion that Opium is nothing else but the juyce of poppies growing in hotter countries, for such Opium as Authors talk of comes from Utopia [he means an imaginary land, I suspect]’. He cautions 'Syrups of Poppies provoke sleep, but in that I desire they may be used with a great deal of caution and wariness...' and warns in particular about giving syrup of poppies to children to get them to sleep. The alkaloids in the sap include: Morphine 12% - affects ?-opioid receptors in the brain and causes happiness, sleepiness, pain relief, suppresses cough and causes constipation. Codeine 3% – mild opiate actions – converted to morphine in the body. Papaverine, relaxes smooth muscle spasm in arteries of heart and brain, and also for intestinal spasm, migraine and erectile dysfunction. Not analgesic. Thebaine mildly analgesic, stimulatory, is made into oxycodone and oxymorphone which are analgesics, and naloxone for treatment of opiate overdose – ?-opioid receptor competitive antagonist – it displaces morphine from ?-opioid receptors, and reverses the constipation caused by opiates. Protopine – analgesic, antihistamine so relieves pain of inflammation. Noscapine – anti-tussive (anti-cough). In 2006 the world production of opium was 6,610 metric tons, in 1906 it was over 30,000 tons when 25% of Chinese males were regular users. The Opium wars of the end of the 19th century were caused by Britain selling huge quantities of Opium to China to restore the balance of payments deficit. Laudanum: 10mg of morphine (as opium) per ml. Paregoric: camphorated opium tincture. 0.4mg morphine per ml. Gee’s Linctus: up to 60 mg in a bottle. J Collis Browne’s chlorodyne: cannabis, morphine, alcohol etc. Kaolin and Morph. - up to 60 mg in a bottle. Dover’s Powders – contained Ipecacuana and morphine. Heroin is made from morphine, but converted back into morphine in the body (Oakeley, 2012). One gram of poppy seeds contains 0.250mgm of morphine, and while one poppy seed bagel will make a urine test positive for morphine for a week, one would need 30-40 bagels to have any discernible effect. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cichorium intybus L., Asteraceae. Chicory, succory. Distribution: Uses: 'Cichory, (or Succory as the vulgar call it) cools and strengthens the liver: so doth Endive' (Culpeper, 1650). The Cichorium sylvestre, Wilde Succorie, of Gerard (1633) and the leaves cooked into a soup for ill people. Linnaeus (1782) reported it was used for Melancholia, Hypochondria, Hectica [fever], haemorrhage and gout. Root contains 20% inulin, a sweetening agent. Dried, roasted and ground up the roots are used as a coffee substitute, best known as Camp coffee (Chicory and Coffee essence). This used to be sold in tall square section bottle with a label showing a circa 1885 army tent with a Sikh soldier standing and serving coffee to a seated officer from the Gordon Highlanders. The bottle on the label has now moved on, and since 2006 it shows the same tent but the Sikh and the Scot are now both seated, drinking Camp coffee together. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.