The medicines in the chest reflect the 19th century inclination to induce sweating, vomiting or diarrhoea as a method of treating a variety of illnesses. Some were used for minor complaints such as indigestion, coughs or mouth ulcers, and others for various types of fevers such as scarlet fever, measles and smallpox. There were also medicines to address ailments common on long voyages.

These portable medicine chests were quite popular at the time. Prior to this period, Britain had a long tradition of medical self-help; the wealthy kept herb gardens, and their servants prepared medicines in stills, while the poor relied on local folklore and ingredients they collected. Medical expertise and day-to-day treatment were often passed down through family recipes and knowledge. Women were frequently the conveyors of such knowledge, and it wasn't until the mid 1800s that pharmacy became a profession. Before then it was considered more an art than a science.

Medicine chests such as this one reflect a period of change in pharmaceutical health care, and there were many reasons for their popularity. Towards the end of the 1700s, medical texts began to be written for the general public in easily understood language. Chemical remedies, which could not be collected by the general public, were becoming more accessible and began to replace plant, mineral and animal based products. The growth of the middle classes meant that more people could afford them, and the ease of having readymade tinctures and powders on hand from trustworthy sources far outweighed the inconvenience of labouring over a hot still for hours ...

The medicine chest is an example of nineteenth century campaign furniture. It is made of mahogany with crushed blue velvet lining in the lid and in the sides of bottle compartments and the sides and base of two empty drawer compartments. It is finely figured to the front with a plainer grain mahogany timber used on the sides. The lower drawer has a tray with compartments that fits within the drawer when it is closed in the chest. There are eight compartments in the drawer and eleven in the top of the chest. There is a handle on the top of the lid and on the front of the drawer. There is a keyhole on the front of the chest above the drawer. A locking pin fits through a barrel opening on the lip of the chest lid when opened, through the front of the chest and into a hole in the drawer when it is closed, to fasten the drawer in place.

Medicine at this time was still quite primitive at best, based on the Greek theory that the body consisted of four bodily humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Disease was caused by an imbalance of these humors. Hence, a physician’s duty was to employ treatment that would restore this delicate balance. Treatment rested on curing the symptoms of the disease rather than the disease itself. Prescribed therapies were limited to diet, exercise, rest, bath, and ‘heroic medicine’. Heroic medicine, consisting of purging, starving, vomiting, or bloodletting, was thought to relieve the body of symptoms like fever or inflammation. 

Quinine is the active ingredient in cinchona, a plant found in Peru. Spanish colonisers learned about an indigenous plant, which Linnaeus named ‘cinchona’ in honour of the Spanish viceroy's wife, who had reportedly been cured from malaria by the plant.

Quinine was an effective treatment against malaria, and is probably the most important example of the role of colonialism in the global distribution of a drug. Malaria had been endemic in many parts of Europe since ancient times, and there was no known cure until the introduction of cinchona in the 1500s. Cinchona was popularised in Europe by the Jesuit cardinal Juan de Lugo, and became known as ‘Peruvian bark’ or ‘Jesuits' bark’.

In 1820, French chemists Joseph Bienaimé Caventou (1795-1877) and Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (1788-1842) isolated the active ingredient quinine from the plant, which enabled the industrial production of the drug. Supplies of quinine were particularly important for European armies and colonies - to protect soldiers and colonists from the devastating disease. The British made many efforts to manufacture quinine, so they would not need to rely on being able to acquire the cinchona plant.

Ipecacuanha, or ipecac, mixed with various wines and syrups was still very popular in the late 19th century. In high doses, its active ingredient, emetine, causes vomiting. The belief was that this rid the body of excess bile, thus restoring the balance of the humours. Most often, it was used in small doses as an expectorant and diaphoretic (sweat-causing) agent in treating colds and flus.One curious recipe recommends combining mutton fat with ipecac in hot milk for use as a chest poultice.

The chest is filled with 15 glass apothecary bottles with glass stoppers –11 in the top and 4 in the separate lower drawer. The bottles are of irregular size in the top and regular size in the drawer, all with ground-glass stoppers to fit inside the dimensions of the chest.

The drawer also houses a [lead or zinc] box, which would probably have stored dangerous, toxic, light/moisture sensitive or expensive substances.

The tray which sits flush inside the top of the drawer houses five square weights and a small set of scales to measure dosages.

Each weight is engraved with a symbol and four are engraved with their weight value: 2 Scruple (1.3 x 1.2 cm), 2 dram (1.7 x 1.7 cm), 1 dram (1.3 x 1.2 cm), 1/2 dram (1.1 x 1.0 cm), 0.8 x 0.7 cm. A scruple is a unit of weight that was in the apothecary system equivalent to 1.296 grams, a dram is equivalent to 1.77 grams, or 3 scruples.