Pill box containing 'Antim. tart.'. Probably short for Antimonium Tart or potassium tartrate of antimony given as a remedy to the very old, very young and very weak to help alleviate wheezing and other related conditions.

This sample and pill box come from a 14-drawer cabinet found in the Herschel family home in the 1950s. The contents of this and a similar cabinet seem to suggest that they were used by successive generations of the family to store specimens, material and apparatus for carrying out experiments.

This is one of a set of pill boxes each containing a different chemical and/ or mineral sample presumably used by John F.W. Herschel or his children (it may even have been used by John F.W. with his children) as the raw materials for experiments.