MID NINETEENTH-CENTURY APOTHECARY'S MANUSCRIPT RECIPE BOOK

[Original manuscript]., [c.1850-1895]. 8vo. Contemporary half roan over marbled boards, the spine ruled in gilt. 168pp. of manuscript notes in ink in several different hands, with individual entries often signed with initials, plus 45pp. of blanks. Yellow endpapers. Contemporary printed notes regarding the mixing of inks and the dispensing of medicines affixed to the front pastedown and rear endpaper respectively. The binding with some cracking to the hinges, rubbing to the boards and wear to the spine ends and corners. A working notebook, the contents, with one page loose, have various splash marks throughout as well as a little toning to page edges. An extensive apothecary's notebook spanning the second half of the nineteenth century and including detailed instructions for the preparation of a wide-range of remedies, salves, potions and solutions, including gout mixture, "harmless hair cleanser", cold creams, skin lotions, shampoos, "Mr. Philpott's Cough Balls", "hair restorer", "tincture of myrrh & borax", gazogene powder, "quinine tooth powder", "children's cough mist, 'blackcurrant'", "violet powder", "sciatica drops", "toothache tincture", "acid pepsine indigestion elixir", various mixtures involving cocaine, perfumes including "Italian Bouquet" and "Eau de Bologna" (with some suitable splashes of a crimson powder on this page), "essence for smelling bottles", "Sir John Fisher's Diarrhoea Mixture", and ballroom floor polish, as well as instructions as to "the simplest mode of obtaining phosphorous" and how "to coat pills with sugar".

The fact that the book is written in several hands, with entries marked by their author's initials, and completed over a number of years, indicates that it may well have been used in a specific apothecary/chemist's shop, with different people adding recipes/information to it as and when.