The Tingle Factor Box

I Haven't Seen Many Of Them - Corks

Imagine you are a child living in the late 1800s. Your father works for the local noble family, and sometimes he brings something home which has been thrown out, for your family to use. Some of your favourites are the corks which come from the bottles of fine wine. They are so interesting, and make perfect little boats, or people, or other toys. You sometimes wonder if the children of the family your father works for know what they are missing!

This post arose in a slightly different way to the norm, as I did not specifically set out to show any corks to the children at all. Instead, we were using corks in a craft activity, and the children were fascinated by them. As fewer bottles use corks, children seem to become more intrigued by the lightweight wood, and some children even commented that they had never really seen them, apart from as an occasional craft supply.

Cork is made of the bark which is harvested from a special type of tree – known usually as the cork tree. It is prized as a material for its amazing properties, which include being fire resistant, light, able to seal liquids (it is impermeable) and able to float. In addition, corn has been used for thousands of years. We know that up to 3000 years ago the Egyptians, Chinese, Babylonians and Persians were using cork as part of their fishing tackle. In ancient Rome it was used in a variety of ways, from roofing to the soles of women’s shoes! The ancient Greeks were also well aware of cork and its various uses, and the famous Greek philosopher, Theophastus, even commented on the extraordinary ability the tree had to regrow bark after it had been stripped.

Of course, the best known use for cork, and indeed the use for which most cork has been used throughout history, is as a stopper, used for for sealing liquids and food, particularly wine, in jars and bottles. The Romans and the Greeks both used cork for this purpose, using it to keep food, oil and wine alike fresh and palatable. So effective were some of these corks that a wine amphora sealed in the 1^st century BC and found in Ephesus actually still had wine in it when it was discovered 2 millennia later! Yet this knowledge of cork appears to have been lost for a time, with simple wood stoppers used instead, and with less effectiveness, in the medieval period. Then in the 17^th century, glass bottles were created and wood could no longer be used. Cork was rediscovered, and has been used to stopper bottles and jars ever since. However, today the use of cork is becoming less common as other methods for sealing jars bottles, such as metal lids and synthetic cork, have become the norm.

It Doesn't Look Like A Baby Bottle - Feeding Bottle

Imagine you are a mother living in the 1800s. You have recently had a new child, and you are enjoying having a little human to look after. Less enjoyable was feeding the little one though. Your husband knew feeding time was rather painful for you though, and the wonderful man recently brought home with him a lovely glass baby feeder. It is so much easier, and far less traumatic for both you and the baby.

When I showed the children this infant feeding bottle, they were most bemused by it. They are, of course, very familiar with babies bottles, but this bottle was nothing like the bottles they recognise. They were intrigued to discover that the history of babies bottles was much longer and more complex than they expected. They were also confused slightly by how the bottle would work, as its teat is missing. The thing which amazed the children most though was the story of how babies bottles were once quite deadly.

The history of baby feeding bottles is remarkably long and fascinating. Many may assume that before modern plastics were available, mothers simply breast fed, or employed a wet nurse to do it for them, if they could afford it. Yet, although wet nurses were certainly popular, there is evidence that baby feeding devices date right back to the ancient civilisations and possibly even into prehistory! The earliest examples of baby feeding devices appear to have been terracotta, but instead of being the bottle shape we recognise today, they were very small jugs which fit in the palm of the hand and had very fine spouts which only allowed the liquid to trickle out, drop by drop. In the middle ages cow horns fitted with a leather ‘teat’ were used in place of these early feeders.

It was not until the 16^th century that feeding bottles actually took the bottle shape. There were at the time high rate of infant death and doctors and wet nurses recognised the need to develop new ways to feed babies. They created bottles made from a wide variety of materials, ranging from metal to glass, but the cheapest and most common were made of wood. Often a piece of sponge was placed over the end to stop the child hurting their gums. These bottles, although an improvement, did not do much for infant mortality. The pewter bottles actually dissolved slowly in the milk, rendering the milk itself toxic, while other bottles simply weren’t cleaned sufficiently and were filled with bacteria and germs. The industrial revolution didn’t improve things either. Modern society was demanding a cheaper, more practical way to feed babies and in 1860 the long tube feeding bottle (a glass bottle fitted with a rubber tube) was created. It allowed the baby to almost feed itself, but the tubes later became known as ‘killer tubes’ as they provided such a perfect home for bacteria. These bottles were actually banned in 1910. It wasn’t until 1924, that the straight bottle we recognise today started to become increasingly common, and the neck and teats of the bottles also became wider to allow the bottles to be properly cleaned.

It's A Really Small Saucepan - Billy

Imagine you are a swagman living rough in the Australian outback. You don’t have a lot of things to carry with you when you move about, but there are a few which are very important – the swag itself and of course your billy. The billy is a great friend to any swaggie in Australia – it can make anything from a cup of tea to cooking a stew. You don’t know where you would be without it.

When I showed the children this enamel billy, they did not realise exactly what it was. Although the billy is something of an Australian icon, it is not something which is often seen today. The children simply assumed the little enamel pot was nothing more than ‘a really small saucepan’. They were amazed to realise that this was a real billy, like the billy which is such a part of Australian folklore, and even more amazed to realise that for many, the billy was actually nothing more than an old can with a handle.

A billy is a tin which is used for cooking over an open fire, and most often to boil water and make tea. Essentially and in the most basic form a billy is made of a large, empty tin with a loop of wire attached in order to allow it to be held or suspended over a fire. Although in Australia we associate the billy with the outback, and it is almost an Australian icon in itself, the billycan is not specifically or uniquely Australian. They were known to be carried by workmen in England and Canada, often as a way to carry food, or to enable them to make tea, though whether they were actually called a billycan then is something which appears to be disputed. The tin itself was however well known in the 19^th century and continued to be used into the 20^th century.

How did the billy come to be such a central part of Australian history though? The billy rose to prominence on the Victorian gold fields. Food was, at that time, difficult to find and even harder to transport to the often remote gold diggings. As a result, large quantities of imported foods were brought in, in big tins. One of the most common foods to be imported in tins, the story has it, was Bouilli which came from France and was a meaty, soupy stew which was very popular with miners. They couldn’t pronounce the name of the product easily though, and so it became known as ‘billy’. The tin itself was also of a useful size though, and on the gold fields people didn’t want to waste things, so they converted the tin into a pot for boiling water and making tea. Soon enough specific tins were being made which also came with a lid (like the enamel version I showed the children). Many swagmen, bushmen and stockmen would carry a set of four billy’s in different sizes, one for carrying water, one for boiling meat, one for vegetables and the smallest for making tea.

 

Sounds Too Good To Be True - Josephson's Australian Ointment

Imagine you are living in the late 1800s. You are a farmers wife and your husband and sons spend a lot of time working out in the hot sun. Sunburn is certainly something which you are familiar with. Luckily you have a little pot of ointment which cures all sorts of burns and sores, and what’s more it works on chapped hands and chafing too. It is a wonderful thing to have an ointment which is useful for curing so many different ailments!

When I showed the children this Josephson’s Australian Ointment pot lid, which claims to cure ‘all sores’, they thought it sounded like a miracle cream. They couldn’t believe that a cream could work on so many things, and were very sceptical about its claims. They were intrigued by the lid though, and by the material it was made of. They are used to plastic tubes and tubs which split and break and thought a pottery jar would be much more practical, though one child said ‘I bet it made it more expensive’

Josephson’s Australian Ointment was a 19^th century cure which claimed to cure ‘all sores’, including old wounds, burns, sunburns, chafing, chapped hands and more. According to an 1874 advertisement in Trove, available online, it was made from ‘the wild plants of the colony’ but was free of poisons. The advertisement, and the pot lid itself do indeed make the ointment sound like a miracle cure, capable of curing any and all injuries. Although we cannot tell for certain whether these claims held some truth such claims were not unusual in an era when patent medicines and cure alls were common.

Cure alls, sometimes also known as patent medicines, were compounds which were sold as medical cures but, in actual fact, were often not truly effective. Most patent medicines were not patented at all, but instead relied on branding which, in their advertisements, was emphasised with a warning to accept no other. In the case of Josephson’s ointment, this branding was the blue star and the caution read that ‘none is genuine’ without it. To obtain a patent for a medicine would have required admitting what the medicine actually contained, and few wanted to do this. For those whose remedies genuinely worked, they didn’t want the competition, but more often the medicines contained cheap and ineffective ingredients which nobody wanted to own to. I have been unable to find out what the ingredients of Josephson’s magic cure were, but it is possible that the ointment which was touted as containing wild Australian plants included teatree and/or eucalyptus oils which may actually have provided some benefit.

 

 

It Must Be A Paperweight - Chinese Stone Pomander Pendant

Imagine you are a lady living in China in the late 1800s. There are many unpleasant smells in the streets, and when you are out you are glad of your scent holder. It is a wonderful thing, a working toggle but also a beautifully carved perfume holder which is not only functional and beautiful, but smells so sweet, full of dried blossoms. You wouldn’t go anywhere without it.

When I showed the children this carved stone toggle, they were fascinated by it. They were amazed by the detail of the carving and couldn’t understand how anybody could make a hollow carving like this without damaging the stone. They could not understand what the carving was for though, and many assumed ‘it must be a paperweight’. One observant child noticed the hole in the top though and correctly guessed that the carving would have been worn, but they were all surprised to discover that such carvings could also be used to carry scents in order to mask unpleasant odours, and could also be used as a type of toggle – almost like a button. They were amazed to discover just how useful such an item could be.

Although this particular example is Chinese, beautifully carved and functional on many different levels, this item is representative of a scent holder and in the western world it would be referred to as a pomander. Throughout history and in many cultures, scented bags were used to mask unpleasant odours. As time went by though, many cultures began to create more elaborate scent holders which became known as pomanders. Many today think of a pomander as an orange studded with cloves, but although these did exist and were even used by poorer people, the upper classes carried a different type of pomander. These were little containers which could be made of stone, ceramic, ivory, wood or metal and sometimes they were even encrusted with jewels. Inside these containers were scented mixtures which could be made up of oils, resins, herbs and flowers. Some very expensive pomanders even had different segments, rather like an orange, which held different scents.

Pomanders are first mentioned in the west in the 13^th century. They were often worn on chains around the neck or at the waist (as the Chinese example I showed the children would have been). At this time, the streets were filled with unpleasant smells and the pomander was a way of warding off these. They were also thought to serve another purpose though – warding off disease. In fact during times of plague or epidemics of serious disease they were a common and important accessory. Some doctors even held their pomanders to their nose while treating the ill, thinking the scents would protect them. This was because people thought that disease was spread by terrible smelling air, so by masking the smells they could avoid getting sick (though of course, it didn’t really work). The pomander I showed the children is Chinese and would most likely have held dried flowers.

It Would Burn You - Hot Water Bottle

Imagine you are living in the early 20^th century. It is cold, and you are getting ready for bed. Although you have had the fire burning in the grate for hours, you know it will be cold, and you have set the water to heat for the family hot water bottles. You will fill each container and slip it into bed at least 10 minutes before bed to take the chill off, and hopefully they will keep everybody warm through the night.

When I showed the children this hot water bottle they were intrigued. They quickly declared it was a ‘water bottle, maybe for a soldier’, but did not dream that it was actually a hot water bottle, for heating beds or keeping warm while travelling. Today, the children see hot water bottles as flexible rubber or made of other plastics, and associate ‘sturdier’ bottles with carrying drinking water. They thought the bottle might have kept the water hot for longer though, with one child saying ‘perhaps it didn’t lose its heat as fast?’ They also thought it might be dangerous though, saying 'it would burn you!'.

Devices for heating beds and even for carrying warmth on a trip are nothing new, with the earliest versions appearing in the 16^th century. These early bed warmers contained hot coals or embers from the fire and had to be carefully looked after. Not only did these bed warmers often scorch the bed if left alone too long, they occasionally set fire to the bed or even the entire building! They certainly could not be left in bed overnight. This is where hot water bottles had their advantages, as they could safely be left in beds and even slept with. The problem was finding a waterproof container to hold the water in, and so many early hot water bottles were made of ceramic, glass, metal or even wood. The hot water bottle I showed the children is probably made of brass and was actually made in Australia.

Many of these hot water bottles had to be wrapped in a soft cloth or bag to prevent the surface of the bottle burning delicate skin (and this bottle even has an inscription suggesting water at 45 degrees be used), but they were able to keep the sleeper warm for hours without the risks of earlier bed warmers. Some of these early style hot water bottles remained popular well into the 20^th century, but the materials they were made of made them expensive. The metal bottle I showed the children would have been expensive, but it would also be robust enough to use during travel. As modern material like rubber and silicone became available, people began to use these for creating cheaper alternatives. A market even began to emerge for exotic hot water bottles, with some produced in America during Prohibition designed to carry illegal liquor and novelty designs also being popular. By the end of the 20^th century use of hot water bottles was in decline though, as people turned to electric blankets to keep them warm. Today, they are becoming increasingly popular again, with people conscious of the cost of energy and their carbon footprint often preferring these low tech heating solutions.

How Amazing - Chemist Bottles

Imagine you are living in the 1930s and you are a pharmacist. You love your job, and of course you love being able to give people just what they need to feel better. Your favourite part of the job though is making up the medicines. It is like magic, the way you add ingredients together to make something new. Mix things one way and you create something to heal or reduce pain, but if you mix something wrong you might create a poison. It is a truly amazing thing!

When I showed the children these chemists bottles, they were very curious about them. To the children, when you go to a chemist there are boxes and bottles, but they all contain preprepared remedies. Although compounding chemists do still exist, they are not common and the idea that a chemist once would have mixed your medicine to your exact needs was amazing. They thought it would be an amazing job, but very difficult because they soon realised that if the chemicals were mixed incorrectly they could do a lot of harm!

Although we may think of chemists and their medicines as modern luxuries, the history of pharmacy actually dates back thousands of years. Whereever civilisations grew up, pharmacy was practiced and all of the great ancient civilisations had their own versions of chemists, including experts in the use of medicinal plants. Sometimes the pharmacist was also the doctor, but many civilisations like the Sumerians and the Egyptians kept doctors and chemists separate and so important was the role of the medicine maker that they were often priests. Today we also tend to keep the role of doctor and chemist separate but throughout history there have been people who have performed both roles. In Europe and particularly England, Apothecaries were common from the Middle Ages right through until the 1800s. They examined and treated ill or injured people as well as creating and dispensing cures. Some of the earliest apothecaries were monks who collected or even grew medicinal plants and prepared them to help the sick and injured.

As time went by though the trade of doctors and chemists again became more separate. Dedicated pharmacists (also called chemists or druggists) began to practise and apothecaries, who did not have the training or knowledge of either doctors or pharmacists now had competition. Although they did not disappear entirely, apothecaries gradually became uncommon. By the 20^th century the pattern of diagnosis and medication had become well established. People went to a doctor and if they were diagnosed with an illness or injury which required medicine, the doctor would write a note for the pharmacist. This note was called was a script (and doctors still write them today!) The patient would then take this note to the pharmacist. Some common medicines were pre-prepared, like they are today but many would be created especially to suit the needs of a specific patient. The pharmacist would compound the medicine (make it up) from a variety of chemicals which were stored in bottles and jars, like the ones I showed the children. The chemical ingredients would be carefully measured and mixed and presented to the customer. Medicines came in a variety of forms, including liquids, pills and powders.

Who Knew It Was So Old - Jelly Crystal Bottle

Imagine you are a housewife living in the early 1900s. Your daughter has just had her birthday, and you are holding a small party for the family to celebrate the occasion. She helped choose the foods she wanted, and one that she was particularly excited by was jelly. Jelly is not something you make very often, but it is a wonderful thing and one of her favourites. Luckily, you can get jelly crystals in a little brown bottle from the corner store, and there is enough in the bottle to make plenty of jelly for the party!

When I showed this jelly crystal bottle to the children, they were very intrigued. Today, jelly comes in little packets, or even premade, and they were amazed to discover that it would have been packaged so differently in the past. They were also curious about how you could tell what flavour jelly the bottle contained as today, jelly crystals often come with flavour and colour included. The idea that once jelly crystals were just a basis for jelly, for people to add their own flavourings and colourings to was one which the children found most curious.

Jelly is a dessert which many think must be a reasonably modern invention, but in fact, it has a history tracing right back to ancient civilisations like Egypt. Many of these early jellies were made without the use of extracted gelatine, and some even occurred naturally, like the jelly which can form around meats. We think of jelly today as being made using gelatine, but there are many jellied foods which are created in very different ways, and these were probably the first jellies to be eaten. They are particularly prominent in Asian cultures, where jellied foods, both sweet and savoury are still popular today.

Jelly made using gelatine still has a remarkably long history though. By the 1300s people had learned to extract gelatine from meats and fish and were using it to set liquids into a wobbly mass. Jelly was particularly popular in England, right from medieval times and was used as beautiful and often very intricate centrepieces for tables. Some were simply set in decorative moulds, but others were created by setting preset or even sculpted pieces of jelly in another clear jelly, or by creating several differently coloured and flavoured layers. Sometimes the jelly was savoury, sometimes it was sweet, sometimes it was a clear liquid and sometimes it was milk based. Sometimes jelly was even made to resemble something else (a plate of fried eggs and bacon was apparently popular!) By the 20^th century, jelly had become a household item, and was even available as ‘jelly crystals’, a mixture of gelatine and icing sugar. As time went by these jelly crystals began to be sold with powdered flavourings and colour, so that all the housewife had to do was add water and wait for it to set. Today, this is the most common form of jelly, but unflavoured, unsweetened gelatine is still available.

But You Just Buy It Prepacked! Milk required Indicator

Imagine you are living in the mid 1900s. You grew up on a farm and always had plenty of milk available, but when you married, you moved with your husband to the city. You still have plenty of milk, but now you have to rely on the milkman to bring it to you in bottles he leaves on the doorstep. The little ‘milk required’ indicator is a wonderful thing though because it lets you tell him just how much milk you need, instead of having milk which goes sour in the heat.

When I showed the children this ‘milk required’ indicator, they were very confused by it. The children today are used to buying milk at the supermarket, already packaged and ready to go, in very definite amounts. They are used to buying milk in 600 millilitre, one or two litre containers and had no idea what a pint was. The fact that the amount in a pint various slightly between countries confused them even more. They declared that ‘buying milk today is much easier’

Although people have probably been drinking milk since shortly after they realised that cows and other animals produced it, the milkman is actually a more modern fixture of history. Up until the time when railways began to be built it was simply too difficult for large quantities of milk to be transported into towns and cities so milk was scarce. People who wanted milk generally kept their own cow, or bartered with neighbours who had one. Then, as the railways extended, transporting large quantities of cheap milk into cities and towns became easier.

Milkmen started to appear in the 1860s, pulling churns full of milk with the help of a young boy (or man). They carried the milk on what was known as a milk pram, a three wheeled cart, and milk was measured out directly into people’s jugs. There was no refrigeration, so the milk might not last until the next morning and people just purchased what they would use. In the 1900s milkmen began to carry more milk, using first horse and cart and then motorized vehicles to transport it, though horse-drawn carts remained common right up to the 1950s! Jugs and churns were also replaced by glass bottles and in the 1920s cardboard lids were put on them. These lids were popular with children who invented bottletop games to play with them. Many houses still did without electric refrigerators though, and so just purchased the amount of milk they would be requiring for the daily use. A ‘milk required indicator’, like the one I showed the children, allowed the household to let the milkman know just how much milk they needed without having to physically see him. People simply put the indicator over the top of the old bottles which were put outside to be collected when the fresh milk was delivered.

It Looks Like A Wooden Wheel - Codd Bottle Opener

Imagine, you are a family, out on a picnic in the late 1800s. It is a beautiful day and the children are enjoying playing in the sun. They are sure to get thirsty soon though. You have plenty of drink for them, and as a special treat there is even soda in Codd Bottles! Of course, the children aren't exactly clean anymore either, so you are glad you bought along a bottle opener. You don't think their fingers are clean enough to be opening the bottles with!