POISON BOTTLES

Poisons offer the collector a vast array of colors, shapes and sizes. (Though, in general, they tend to be on the small size, and a large number of them can be displayed in a relatively small space.)

Most of the poisons we collect, today, were produced over a short span of about 60 years, between 1870 and 1930.

Normally when we think of poisons, names like Arsenic, Strychnine and Cyanide come to mind. In the broader sense, anything that will either make you sick, or, worse still, kill you, if taken internally falls under the classification of a Poison. For a sense of the possibilities, take a look under your kitchen sink, or in your medicine cabinet! Ammonia, iodine and toilet bowl cleaners are just a few that come to mind.

In the late 1800s and well into the 20^th century, large numbers of people were illiterate, so even if bottles were labelled, those folks couldn’t read them. Also, before electric lighting, it wasn’t uncommon for people to be poking around in the cupboard for their favorite miracle cure, in the dark, and some of them met an early end, when they inadvertently grabbed a bottle of rat poison by mistake. The many untimely deaths by accidental poisoning led to the idea that this was a serious problem that needed to be attended to.

Though there were numerous attempts by the governments of both the United States and England to legislate a solution to the problem, basically it was the drug and chemical industries themselves, who came up with the answer. The idea was to make poison containers distinguishable from others, by appealing to as many senses as possible, even to the illiterate and the blind, no matter what the lighting conditions were.

Colors were used, the most common being cobalt blue, then shades of green and amber. Some, but not many, were made in aqua, and an even lesser number in clearglass.

Next was texturing the bottles, with both horizontal and vertical ribbing, bumps, hobnails and raised lattice patterns. A Skull and Crossbones was embossed on some, to indicate DEATH!

Many, if not most poison bottles were also embossed with the words POISON, POISONOUS, NOT TO BE TAKEN or FOR EXTERNAL USE, ONLY.

Last of all, large numbers of Hexagonal and Triangular poison bottles were made, and many unusual shaped poison bottles were patented, including the famous Skull Poison and the F. A. Thompson & Co. coffin shape in the U.S. and the Wasp Waist and Submarine shapes in England.

Most of these poison bottles also had paper labels, which specifically identified the contents, as well as the maker’s name. Usually the label also had skull and crossbones.

Though we have no numbers to back this up, we assume that all of the above measures were to some extent, effective, and that large numbers of untimely deaths were prevented.

The most widely recognized reference work for poison bottles is Rudy Kuhn’s Poison Bottle Workbooks, Volumes I & II.  Rudy passed away, early in 2000. He, with the help of many friends, gave much to the poison bottle community, with these marvelous volumes, and he will be sorely missed. The two volume set is still available from Terry Kuhn, 3954 Perie Lane, San Jose, CA 95132.  Price for the 2 volume set is $45.00, including U.S. postage.

For an ongoing source of information on Poison Bottles, join the Antique Poison Bottle Collector’s Association.

For a page of links that are of special interest to Poison Bottle Collectors, check out poisonbottle.com.