'Pills & Tablets' box, London, England, 1916

Tin box for medicine bottles, probably from WWI British Military pattern medicine or First Aid chest, by Burgoyne Burbidges & Co, 1916

This tin box was probably part of a much larger first aid kit or medicine chest used during the First World War. The drugs in the box include opium for pain relief, quinine hydrochloride for malaria, and calomel with colocynth. Both calomel and colocynth have antiseptic qualities but when taken together they purge the body by causing vomiting. Calomel is also a drug associated with the treatment of the venereal disease syphilis – a major problem during the First World War.