Medical History Museum
At the University of Melbourne

Medicine Chest c.1880

Comprising oak box (lidded) with brass handles and lock, fitted with compartments and lined throughout with moss-green velvet. Contains a complete set of glass stoppered drug bottles with original labels, and in some instances contents. The central compartment holds the equipment necessary for the preparation of medicines, including scales, weights and measures, and a small glass mortar and pestle. This compartment lifts out to reveal a further set of compartments holding smaller bottles and ointment jars.

The overall measurements of the box (closed) are 24.0 x 32.0 x 16.0 cm

The provenance of the chest is not known other than it was most likely supplied by Duncan, Flockhart & Co., Chemists to the Queen, 52 North Bridge and 39 Princes St. Edinburgh (whose labels appear on the bottles), and much later was purchased for the Medical History Museum Collection, at the University of Melbourne, probably in the 1970s.

D. Flockhart, Manufacturing Chemists & Aerated Water Manufacturers was founded in 1816, and was known for having supplied the chloroform with which Sir James Simpson conducted his trials for an anaesthetic more effective and agreeable than ether for the control of pain in childbirth, in 1847.

In the nineteenth century, a variety of chests could be purchased from chemists and druggists, and were often fine examples of the cabinet maker’s skills. The chests  would be bought in and then fitted out by the chemist with either customary medicaments, or according to the customer’s own  requirements: either for home use or for the traveller, or with instruments for the surgeon, or as in this instance, with items required by a dispensing doctor.

The compact, portable medical chest became essential for the doctor who travelled about to visit his patients and unlike the chemist, dispensed to them in the home. This was particularly the case in rural Australia, where people lived in isolated settlements far from the conveniences and services offered in the towns, and where the visit of a doctor was rare. Such households often owned a medicine chest of their own, and by necessity, carried out the diagnosis and treatment themselves, with the aid of a Family Medical Guide. By the end of the nineteenth century, compressed tablet medication became available and more practical, so it no longer became necessary to carry bulky bottles of liquid medicines about, and the medical chests became more compact and considerably lighter in weight.

The printed labels on the bottles indicate a fairly common range of basic pharmaceutical ingredients used for medications in that period, and as the germ theory for the transmission of disease was not then understood, these drugs were probably largely ineffective. They included Ipececuan powder (for nausea or to induce vomiting), Spirits of Sal Volatile (to revive after fainting or dizziness), Carbonate of Soda, Indian Rhubarb, Antimonial Wine, Spirit of Hartshorn (with oil, as a liniment), Dr Gregory’s Concentrated Stomach Powder, Extract of Senna (laxative), Calomel (mercury in its various forms for tuberculosis, syphilis, and many other applications), Dover’s powder, and blistering plasters. It can be seen that these drugs, many of them quite powerful and dangerous, could only attempt to alleviate symptoms rather than the disease itself, and risked quite harmful side-effects in the sufferer.

This medicine chest is one of a collection of eight handsome nineteenth-century chests within the Medical History Museum’s collection of over five thousand items, which include archival photographs, documents, notebooks, certificates, medical, surgical and scientific instruments, many forming part of our national heritage. Of particular significance are the historical microscope and microtome collections, the magnificent 1881 Exhibition  showcases, and the 1847 Savory & Moore Pharmacy shipped from London.