No. 254. 'Tabloid' Brand Medicine Chest (The Indian)
Item
Title
No. 254. 'Tabloid' Brand Medicine Chest (The Indian)
Is Part Of
Special Collections
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Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research
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Description
A small medicine chest, listed as BC666, kept in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the University of Cape Town. Roughly 15cm in height and depth, and 20cm in width, it is made of metal and painted black, with the words ‘Trade Mark’, 'Tabloid' and ‘Brand’ printed under the keyhole, on its front. Fitted with a brown leather strap and metal clasps, the case suggests easy portability and containment. Manufactured by Burroughs Wellcome & Co. in the 19th century, these travelling Tabloid brand medicine chests accompanied eminent explorers such as Stanley, Scott and Shackleton on their travels – and was a firm favourite amongst missionaries and explorers coming to Africa, seen as a tool to combat ‘tropicality’. This particular chest belonged to Walter Floyd, a dentist born in Kent, who opened a practice in Cape Town in 1904, and bought it for a hunting trip he made to (then) Northern Rhodesia in 1913.
Access Rights
Currently locked away in Strongroom 3 in the UCT Jagger Library. Prior appointment to the library staff needed in order to view the object. Object should be handled with gloves, and a form signed in order to take any photos of it.
Creator
Burroughs Wellcome & Co.
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Date Created
1890
endDate
1940
Source
UCT Special Collections - BC666
Burroughs Wellcome & Co.1925. ‘Tabloid’: brief medical guide for explorers, missionaries, travellers, colonists, planters and others. London: Burroughs Wellcome & Co.
Resonances
Walter Floyd
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Chest: a botanical ecology
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Ammonium Bromide
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Blaud pills
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Calomel
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Chlorate of Potash
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Chloroform and Morphine
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Ginger Essence
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Ipecacuanha
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Iron and Arsenic Compound
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japanned metal
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Laxative vegetable
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leather
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medicine dropper
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Phenacetin
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Quinine and Cinnamon
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Quinine and Rhubarb Compound
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Quinine Bisulphate
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Soda-mint
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Teakwood
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Tonic Compound
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tooth stoppers
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Zinc Sulphate
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strongroom
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dormant
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invisible
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medicine chest
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Type
Object
Contributor
Nina Liebenberg
