Boxes in which physicians kept their drugs and other medications, medical instruments and supplies, manuals, etc. As a carrying case or convenient storage receptacle, or a kind of portable pharmacy, the medicine chest was indispensable to the itinerant physician. The chest was usually larger and sturdier than a doctor's kit or bag.
    

concept

Medicines and Medicine chest: Peary North Pole 1909

The healer.

Select medicines and family articles prepared and sold by J. K. Clapham, dispensing chemist, and manufacturer of aerated waters, 6, Briggate, Leeds.

Medicine chest supplied to Shackleton Expedition

Specification of Edmund Adolphus Kirby : dispensing medicines.

Description of the U.S. Army transport cart, model of 1876 / by D.L. Huntington and George A. Otis, exhibited in the yard.

The universal dispensatory : containing companions to the tropical, the continental, the family, the country clergyman's, the traveller's, and the military, or officer's dispensaries, or medical chests : detailing the properties, doses, and best methods of exhibiting the contents of each chest, in different climates and countries / by Reece and Co.

Specification of Edmund Adolphus Kirby : portable medicine case, &c.

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Shop

Café

Please note, our Changing Places toilet is currently out of service and undergoing repair works.

We're running paid user research studies to improve Wellcome Collection online

Take part in research

Medicine Chests

Images

Catalogue

Specification of Edmund Adolphus Kirby : dispensing medicines.

Medicine chest supplied to Shackleton Expedition

Description of the U.S. Army transport cart, model of 1876 / by D.L. Huntington and George A. Otis, exhibited in the yard.

Specification of Edmund Adolphus Kirby : portable medicine case, &c.