Dentalium Spurium, c1745-1807

Description

Glass specie jar containing specimens of ‘Dentalium Spurium’, fish otoliths (ear bones) used as a substitute for true Dentalium in medicinal preparations. From the Burges Collection.

Text on paper contents label reads ‘Catal. mat. med. p. 114. Nos 32. 33. 34. Dentalium Spurium.’

Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says that ‘Several [Apothecaries] likewise take the Bone in the Head of a Sea Fish for the true Tooth-shell’, and that Dentalium itself ‘is an Alcali, to be us’d as other testaceous Powders’.