Rubber Vaults, St Katharine Docks 1910

Black and white photograph of the rubber vaults, St Katharine Docks, London. The expansion of large-scale trade in pharmaceutical raw materials during the nineteenth century was not only confined to crude drugs of plant origin. Many materials had to be imported. Non-medicinal commodities used in the production of medical and pharmaceutical equipment and appliances were also important, as illustrated by the transportation and storage of rubber in the early twentieth century.