Friday, January 8, 2016
Expedition Medicine Chest
The Science Museum of London brings us this vintage medicine chest used by Teddy Roosevelt during his 1909 African expedition. It's a sophisticated piece of kit that wouldn't be out of place on a modern expedition. One thing I wanted to draw attention to is the sealing mechanism on the medicine bottles. They're held in place by the upper bays of the chest. With no room to move around the friction fit ground glass stoppers are enough to maintain a tight seal.
Nice piece of equipment :-)
ReplyDeleteIf the glass stoppers are ground right the friction fit should be enough to keep them closed.
I use selveral such bottles in my kitchen on a daily basis and if I close them too tight I can't get them open again without a considerable amount of force. One I even had to break to get it open again :-/
It was the days of big game hunting and big expenses, here’s a link on the gross costs of such an expedition, circa 1910. Keep in mind that these costs double after WWI due to the double digit inflation of the post war economy of the 1920s. -- http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trafrica.html
ReplyDeleteHere’s some film footage of the expedition (part 1 of 4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cJlddQ7TKg
A list of the carnage by Teddy and Kermit (no it’s his son, not the frog) http://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9067587/theodore-roosevelt-safari
Read TR’s account of the expedition, African Game Trails (1910) download https://archive.org/details/africangametrail02roos
Speaking of old bottles of colored powders:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/01/harvard-pigment-library/
-MJ (GNDN)