Tabloid medicine chest from Scott Polar Expedition
Item
Title
Tabloid medicine chest from Scott Polar Expedition
Is Part Of
Marine and Antarctic Research Centre for Innovation and Sustainability
See all items with this value
History
See all items with this value
Human Biology
See all items with this value
Description
The expedition carried with them a Tabloid Medicine Chest. On the 11th of March, knowing that the party was unlikely to survive, Scott ordered Edward Wilson, the expedition’s Chief Scientist and a qualified doctor, to divide the painkillers between them so they could each end their life on their own terms. Writing in his diary on that day, Scott states, “I practically ordered Wilson to hand over the means of ending our troubles to us, so that anyone of us may know how to do so".
Scott, Bowers and Oates had thirty opium tabloids apiece and Wilson, the morphine. Scotts diary entry on either the 22nd or 23rd of March showed that they had a change of heart however: “no fuel and only one or two left of food — must be near the end. Have decided that it shall be natural — we shall march for the depot with or without our effects and die in our tracks".
Scott, Bowers and Oates had thirty opium tabloids apiece and Wilson, the morphine. Scotts diary entry on either the 22nd or 23rd of March showed that they had a change of heart however: “no fuel and only one or two left of food — must be near the end. Have decided that it shall be natural — we shall march for the depot with or without our effects and die in our tracks".
Access Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Curriculum
Creator
Burroughs Wellcome & Co.
See all items with this value
Date Created
1910
Source
Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Library
Resonances
morphine
See all items with this value
Terra Nova
See all items with this value
courage
See all items with this value
sadness
See all items with this value
Robert Falcon Scott
See all items with this value
failure
See all items with this value
expedition
See all items with this value
Wellcome Library
See all items with this value
medicine
See all items with this value
medicine chest
See all items with this value
Type
Object
Image
