Leather Medicine Case

A small leather hide 4 bottle Medicine Case.

The case is lined in thin, dark blue leather that has been passed through a roller to give a hatched effect. To the lid interior is a red velvet pad that can be opened on a twist catch. Underneath the pad, beneath the lid, is an area to keep bandages etc. When closed, the velvet pad acts as a cushion to protect the glass bottles in the case. The lid is fixed by a belt strap.

The case would originally have had 4 uniform bottles of the user's medicines of choice. These would be replaced as and when they needed to be. The case now has three bottles. One bottle is for Pure Glycerine from Thresh, Dispensing Chemists of Spring Gardens, Buxton. They are known to have been in business at the end of the 19th century. The second bottle is plain with no label. The third bottle is green and much shorter than its allocated space. It is a bottle of Frozoclone, an Eau de Cologne from R. Demuth's Laboratories. They describe it as refreshing when rubbed on the forehead, pleasant as a smelling bottle and invaluable in a heated atmosphere or when motoring. The case also contains three bandages.

It was quite common for the traveller to take medicine on their journey and a small leather cased set was very practical. A number of chemists sold them and restocked their contents as well as larger companies such as the Army & Navy CSL.

This case is unnamed but is well made. The leather is on a wooden carcass to give it rigidity with some of the wood showing through where the blue leather has worn through use. The top has some tooled decorative lines with a motif to each corner and the base has four stud feet underneath the leather. This case can be considered small but they came in a variety of sizes. Circa 1900.