Burroughs Wellcome Co medicine chests

British Antarctic Expedition – Terra Nova

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome and Silas Burroughs formed the Burroughs Wellcome & Company, pharmaceutical company in 1880. They specialised in producing Tabloid medicines, and their medicine chests were quite practical, for those, like Robert Falcon Scott and his team, who intended reaching the South Pole. The medicine chests were durable, lightweight and compact, which was of crucial importance considering that all the mens supplies were hauled on sledges.

When the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers were found in their tent on the Ross Ice Shelf on November 12th 1912, the search party also found two of the Burroughs Wellcome & Company, Tabloid medicines chests. The grieving men buried their comrades where they lay, under a cairn of snow, having first removed personal artefacts, journals, diaries and the two chests, which unlike the tragic Polar Party, would make it to the South Pole and back again.

1

Tabloid medicine chest issued to the Scott Polar Expedition, found with their bodies.

2

A Burroughs Wellcome Co medicine chest used on the British Antarctic Expedition

3

 

4

 

5

 

6

 

7

 

8

 

9

 

All Images Courtesy Of Wikimedia

Further Reading From Sources

Object of the month: a tabloid chest
The birth and growth of Burroughs Wellcome & Co.