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Icthyocolla, c1745-1807

© 2021 Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Description

Glass specie jar, with wooden lid and paper labels, containing what appears to be a dried swim bladder from a sturgeon, known as isinglass or ‘fish glue’. From the Burges Collection.

Text on paper labels reads ‘Catal. mat. med. p. 114. No. 37’ and ‘Icthyocolla’.

Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says that ‘us’d in Broth and Jellies, it strengthens the Back, stops a Dysentery and continued Purging. It is good in Gonorrhoea’s, and the Fluor Albus. Being of an alcalious Nature, it absorbs Acids, and eases the most inveterate Pains of the Stomach.’