Browse Artefacts (75 total)

A small cylindrical medicine vial filled with light-brown pills, labelled ‘Dover’s Powder Representing 2 ½ grs.’.

Dover’s Powder found popularity as an ‘admirable anodyne diaphoretic’ (Wood, Bache, 1874, p.1368), and was named after…

Dr Gregory’s Stomachic Powder or Compound Rhubarb Powder, prepared by Duncan, Flockhart & Co. A common nineteenth-century antacid, stomachic and cathartic developed by James Gregory (1753-1821). Contains powdered Turkey rhubarb (rheum palmatum),…

A cylindrical bottle with a wooden stopper containing Drosera, prepared by a homeopathic chemist Joseph James, Promenade Place, Cheltenham, who had worked for Arthur Guinness M.D. and undertook the company and changed the name to Joseph James M.P.S…

A cylindrical bottle with a wooden stopper containing Dulcamara, prepared by a homeopathic chemist Joseph James, Promenade Place, Cheltenham, was apprenticed to a homeopathic chemist called Edwin Wheeler and within a few years bought Mr Wheeler’s…

English Paregoric Elixir, prepared by Duncan, Flockhart & Company. “Paregoric” is a camphorated tincture of opium, sometimes containing additional ingredients such as benzoic acid, aniseed oil, honey and alcohol. Paregoric medicines such as this…

A cylindrical bottle with a wooden stopper containing Gelsemium, prepared by a homeopathic chemist Joseph James, Promenade Place, Cheltenham, who had worked for Arthur Guinness M.D. and undertook the company and changed the name to Joseph James M.P.S…

This bottle is empty.

As well as its use in food recipes, ginger was used extensively in medicines for millennia and became well-known in England as early as the 11th century. The famous herbalist, Nicholas Culpeper advised to use the root for…

A cylindrical bottle with a wooden stopper containing Hepar Sulphris, prepared by a homeopathic chemist Joseph James, Promenade Place, Cheltenham, who had worked for Arthur Guinness M.D. and undertook the company and changed the name to Joseph James…

Huxham’s Tincture Bark, prepared by Duncan, Flockhart & Company. Devised by Dr John Huxham (c.1692-1768) to treat fevers, Huxham’s Tincture contained cinchona bark, orange peel, serpentary root, saffron, cochineal and alcohol. Huxham’s original…

Infusion of Crocus Mettalorum, labelled by Sir Stuart Threipland in his medicine chest as ‘In. Croc: Metal’.

Crocus Mettalorum (Crocus of Antimony; Liver of Antimony) was a strong purgative used to induce vomiting. An infusion of crocus…