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Book

After a brief historical introduction and a description of a Victorian chemist and druggist's shop, this book describes and illustrates many of the items used and sold there. Most of the dispensing equipment and containers for the drugs used are now obsolete and appear from time to time in antique shops and at collectors' fairs. Articles sold over the counter included medicines, perfumes and toiletries and a wide variety of objects used in the sickroom or nursery. The book also contains a chapter on medical and surgical instru­ments and will help in the identification of the medical bygones which were in everyday use in the nineteenth century

• Most bottles were made of colourless glass, but cobalt blue was sometimes used, particularly for syrups, and actinic green glass was popular for poisons. With the advent of moulded bottles, poison rounds were often made distinguishable to the touch, usually by being fluted vertically.
• Live medicinal leeches, used to bleed people, were a normal item of stock. These were kept in specially made leech jars, which were usually of creamware or coloured earthenware and had perforated lids.
• Many chemists packed their own remedies and sold these together with nationally advertised patent medicines. They made their own perfumes too, selling them alongside the products of well-known firms like Yardley.