Each with its gilt-edged label.
A visit to the Maitland Hospital Pharmacy (Building H, Level 2)in 2020 and 2021 offers a reminder of how pharmaceutical substances were stored and prepared in the past. Behind the front desk are shelves of apothecary bottles dating from the early to mid-twentieth century.
Some of The Maitland Hospital apothecary bottle collection on show behind the front desk of the hospital pharmacy, 2020.(Janis Wilton)
(Maitland Hospital Collection 62)
In 1992 in contributing to a publication marking the 150th anniversary of the Maitland Hospital, the hospital pharmacist, Peter Browne, observed that the hospital pharmacy had ‘one of the finest collections of apothecary’s shelf bottles in Australia – each with its gilt-edged label – which he inherited when he was appointed to the pharmacy’.
From Maitland Hospital 150 Years, Maitland Mercury, 1992.
(Maitland City Library Local Studies Collection)
With labels intact and most of the bottles still holding contents, the collection provides insights into the range and variety of ingredients used. Pharmacists were charged with knowing their substances and being able to measure and mix accurately. Safely storing and labelling ingredients, measuring, grinding and mixing, and a knowledge of the benefits and dangers of the various substances were essential skills.
Views and details of The Maitland Hospital apothecary bottle collection, 2021. (Catharine Neilson)
The catalogue entry for some apothecary jars from Museums Victoria includes accounts of some of the medicinal substances stored in the bottles and the illnesses they treated.
Other pharmaceutical items currently in the Maitland Hospital Collection provide further reminders of the equipment, skills and knowledge involved in dispensing medicines for patients in the hospital.
Pharmacy items in the Maitland Hospital Collection, 2021. (Catharine Neilson)
(Maitland Hospital Collection 396, 399, 400, 401, 402)