Field medical pannier, canvas, with leather and metal fittings, interior compartments, some with protective metal plates, contents include drug bottles, injection ampoules, dressings, bandages, splints, by Bach and Riedel, German, 1910-1918

The compact medical set was used during the First World War by the German Army. It contains a wide range of equipment needed to treat wounds such as burns and includes dressings, bandages, anaesthetics to numb pain, and sedatives such as opium. Each section of the kit is labelled in German – for example, mull translates to ‘muslin’ or ‘gauze’; verbandpackchen to ‘field dressing’.

This pannier was among large amounts of medical equipment and supplies abandoned by the German Army or captured as their troops retreated in the final months of the war.