❄️Mudlark’s Advent, Day 15❄️
All credit to David Hodgson of Thames Foreshore Finds for identifying this lovely little stopper as what I hoped it would be.
It’s a 19th Century amber brown apothecary bottle stopper, like the ones in this photo, found in the Regarding shop, on Etsy.
The bottles in this photo are ‘drip by drop’ – ‘tropfflasch’ – designed by Hermann Lamprecht and Georg Hirdes, Germany, used from 1882 to control the dispensing of chemicals. The stopper had a groove that matched up to another groove in the bottle neck, allowing the correct amount of ether to be poured out straight onto a cloth, before administering to the patient.
It was very popular for dispensing eye drops and diethyl ether anaesthesia. This kind of bottle and stopper was produced from 1882 to 1900.