Page 10 - Pharmacy History 23 July 2004

knowledge of these developments spread rapidly, and this was due,
to a great extent to proliferation of medical magazines, both professional (such as the London Medical Journal, the Edinburgh Medical and.Surgical Journal, and later on the Lancet) and popular (for example the Monthly Gazette of Health and the Doctor Penny Magazine). Collectively, publications such as these have proved to be a very rich source
of history.
Machell can be regarded as a pioneer
in the field of multi-purpose syringe outfits, such as those made by Read and Weiss that became well known in the nineteenth century.
Endnotes and references
1. The Monthly Gazette of Health, Vol. 3,
No.33, September 1818, pp. 1016-1018.
2. Colluvies – a collection or gathering of
filth or foul matter.
3. The Monthly Gazette of Health, Vol. 4,
No. 48, December 1819, pp. 366-368.
4. Read’s enema syringe could be adapted
for use as a stomach pump, for cupping and drawing the breasts, rectal injection of tobacco smoke, blood transfusion,
and vaginal douching, as well as watering plants and destroying garden pests. Weiss’ syringe was advertised for injecting and emptying the stomach, giving food in cases of locked jaw, injecting the bladder, administering enemas with or without the aid of another person, blood transfusion, for moxa, cupping and drawing the breast, hydrophobia (by cupping), and small glasses were available for treating viper bites on a finger as well as small pipes far the vagina, ear, sinuses &c..
5. Cupping, including dry cupping and breast cupping, is discussed in Audrey Davis and Tony Appel, Bloodletting Instruments, 1983, Arlington, MA, The Printers’ Devil, pp. 17-34.
Borax – The New Patent
by Geoff Miller
In these enlightened days, our public health authorities have virtually banned Boron and it salts for
human therapeutic use., but it was not that long ago that its praises were being sung as “the magic wand of
the good Fairy PURITY, at whose touch the demons of DIRT, DECAY AND DISEASE, and all other impurities must vanish and yield to the beneficial influence of Health, Happiness and Vigour”.
For many years the chief commercial source of Boric Acid and other Boron salts was the volcanic waters in Tuscany and it was too expensive to be widely used.
With the discovery of large quantities of Borax in the salt crusts of dry lakes especially in California in the USA,. The lake became known as the Boron Lake and the product was also called Prepared Californian Borax.
With a cheap source of supply available, Borax was feted around the world for its almost miraculous properties. In England, the Patent Borax Company of Birmingham, marketed its product throughout the world in distinctive ceramic pots, each bearing the symbol of a Borax crystal.
The advertising that accompanied the product claimed the patronage of Queen Victoria herself, and Borax was toted as being “suited as well for the home of the cottage housewife as for the mansion of Her Majesty, and the comfort of civilised persons everywhere.”
Many examples of the underglazed containers came to Australia because it would have been very useful on board a migrant ship in meeting the need to keep meat and vegetables
as well as bed linen and personal
clothing, clean and sweet and free from infectious germs.
Because it was not affected by hard water or salt water, it would have been an essential for every traveller in those times.
Borax was also promoted as”Electric Voice Crystals” - for a clear voice and sweet breath! Perhaps this explains why Glycerin Borax was such a wonderful standby to treat infants with oral thrush, when bottle feeding was accepted as an option for the nursing mother.
10 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 2 ■ no 24 ■ November 2004