This chest was used to carry a variety of medicines and equipment used to compound medicines. Some of the more common medicines included bicarbonate of soda, camphor, tartaric acid, citric acid, oil of peppermint, Epsom salts, syrup of Ipecac, quinine, ammonia, nitrate of silver, chloroform, opium and morphine.
Since medicines were in short supply during the Civil War it was not uncommon for doctors and surgeons to use a variety of home remedies made from local plants and plant parts, such as red oak bark, slippery elm and wahoo root bark, mustard seed or leaves, sarsaparilla root, sassafras and moonshine whiskey.
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30619
