Cannabis Museum

Cannabis Concentrates in Blue Poison Bottles

Cannabis in herbal form was known to be safe to use, but the concentrations that began to become available in the second half of the nineteenth century were respected for their power. These were almost always dispensed in containers marked as potentially poisonous. In 1872, the American Medical Association recommended the use of textured, colored glass containers for the storage and dispersion of potentially poisonous medicines. That same year, Whitall Tatum Glassworks of Millville, NJ introduced the textured surface cobalt blue poison bottle. Available in nine sizes, the surface has a pattern of diamond shaped projections around the bottle. The bottle was intended to “protect patients from danger of mistake both day and night, by the touch as well as sight.” Whitall Tatum never patented the design. The bottle was widely imitated by competitors and became the most widely used poison bottle in the country. The four bottles in this image feature the Whitall Tatum & Co. stopper with cork shells. In 1884, a patent for the design of these cobalt blue stoppers with the word “poison” boldly embossed and “studded on all five faces with pyramidal projections” was filed by Whitall Tatum. These poison stoppers stayed popular well into the twentieth century. The hand-lettered labels are all the same pattern and scaled according to the bottle size. The gold leaf labels are applied directly to the bottle surface and feature red stripes on the top and the bottom, as well as hand-illustrated acanthus leaves in the corners. TR: Cannabis, Tincture Cannabis. A tincture is an extract made by soaking herbs in a liquid, most often in alcohol, for a specific amount of time; then the plant material is strained and discarded. The bottom is embossed with “H.B. CO.,” the trademark of Hagerty Brothers. The 7″ tincture bottle was made in a two-piece mold that dates to the very early twentieth century. The “prescription lip” is designed with a flared mouth and a thin lip for the precise dripping of the bottle’s contents. Elix: Cannab., Elixir Cannabis. An elixir is an aromatic or sweetened hydro-alcoholic solution with at least one active ingredient, in this case, Cannabis. The alcohol present plays several roles: to extract the active ingredient, to improve the taste, to slow down the sugar crystallization, and to preserve the solution. The bottom of this 4 1/2″ tall two-piece molded bottle is embossed with “WTCO,” which is a Whitall Tatum Company bottle first introduced in 1872. This particular version dates back to the early 1900s. FL: Ext: Cannab., Fluid Extract Cannabis. Fluid extract is a liquid preparation of a medicinal plant made through percolation by using alcohol as a solvent and a preservative. The classic extract is formulated so that each 1 ml of fluid contains the therapeutic constituent of one gram of the beneficial drug that it represents. This 3 3/4″ bottle is embossed with “H.B. CO.,” a smaller version of the tincture bottle above. SYR: Cannabis, Syrup of Cannabis. Syrup, another preparation of the medical ingredient, is an aqueous solution of sugar. Glycerin was often added to increase solubility and slow crystallization. The 5 1/2″ syrup bottle has a thin neck intended to hold a somewhat loose fitting glass stopper to accommodate the buildup of sticky syrups. The base has a faint, unrecognizable, bottom emboss.