Browse Items (111 total)

This was an emplastrum or medicinal plaster with hemlock as the active ingredient. The Greek philosopher Socrates was executed by drinking a cup of poison hemlock, but that was most likely not the northern water hemlock (cicuta virosa) or spotted…

On November 22, 1963, the nation was shocked by the shooting of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. He was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Southwestern Medical School physicians tried to save him, without success. The empty Presidential…

Nurses' uniforms became increasingly more practical and comfortable in the early 20th century. This humorous essay on the evolution of nurses' uniforms between 1903 and 1923 was published in the 1923 student yearbook (titled the "Thermometer") of the…

An extract from the bark of a shrub, commonly called alder buckthorn, was used as a drug. It was very irritant to the gastrointestinal mucous membrane, producing, when taken in sufficient quantity, violent catharsis, accompanied by vomiting and much…

This jar was used to hold an almond extract, used as an agreeable, nutritive demulcent in catarrhal and dysenteric affections and in irritations of the urinary passages.

Noix vomique, Nux vomica, and is also known as the strychine tree (Strychnos nux-vomica). Extracted from a tree covered with a smooth, dark gray bark, the drug that was stored in this jar was believed by some physicians to act favorably upon the…

Extracted from cinchona bark, the drug that was stored in this apothecary jar was used as an antiperiodic, but later alkaloids were chosen for this purpose rather than the cinchona bark extract. During the Revolutionary War, cinchona bark, also known…

Inula, a tonic extracted from a tree, was a gentle stimulant. It was supposed to possess diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, and emmenagogue properties. It was used chiefly in the treatment of chronic diseases of the lungs.

Was used to produce turpentine, which was, in turn, used to combat a variety of ills, such as urinary dysfunctions and tapeworms. Also used as an external stimulant for chronic rheumatism.

In 1848, the apothecary Georg Franz Merck (1825 - 1873) discovered papaverine. This was a non-narcotic alkaloid used for its antispasmodic effects.