Browse Artefacts (75 total)

A small glass bottle with cork stopper labelled ‘Veratrum Album’, filled with a number of white, spherical pills.

A perennial plant native to Europe, growing in ‘wet meadows and swampy places’, veratrum album sports a bitter and acrid…

This bottle is empty.

This bottle is mostly empty but there are remnants of a dark red powder.

This bottle is empty and unlabelled.

This bottle probably contained a substance called ‘Gregory’s Powder’ as evidenced by the pinkish hue of the surviving powder. The powder was named after its inventor Dr James Gregory, a physician in Edinburgh and was used as a laxative. It…

A small cylindrical medicine vial with screw top lid labelled ‘Tonsillitis’. The vial is filled with a number of greyish pills that, according to the label, contain: Tr. Aconite 1-5 gtt., Tr. Belladonna 1-10 gtt., Tr. Bryonia 1-10 gtt., and Red…

Tincture of Myrrh, labelled by Sir Stuart Threipland in his medicine chest as ‘Ti Myrrh’. Myrrh is a resin extracted from commiphora habessinica, here combined with liquid to make an infusion. Tinctures of myrrh were used as astringents and…

Tincture of English Crocus, labelled by Sir Stuart Threipland in his medicine chest as ‘Tin Croc:Anglic’.

English crocus was used alongside rhubarb as an effective eighteenth- and nineteenth-century laxative, but English crocus powder could…

Tincture of Castoreum, labelled by Sir Stuart Threipland in his medicine chest as ‘Ti Castor:R’.

Castoreum, a red-brown secretion from beaver inguinal sacs. The term ‘castor’ is the Latin word for beaver and is used to describe the castor…

Tincture of Cantharides, labelled by Sir Stuart Threipland in his medicine chest as ‘Ti Canth’.

Cantharidin (Cantharides, Cantharis, Cantharid) refers to substances produced by the Lytta (formerly Cantharis) Vesicatoria beetle (Spanish Fly;…