Small glass bottle with metal lid and a paper label.
Label says "Extract colocynth and Blue Pill; as Directed." Colocynth is Citrullus colocynthis, commonly known as bitter apple, bitter cucumber, desert gourd, egusi, or vine of Sodom. It is a viny plant native to the Mediterranean Basin and Asia. Savory's 'Companion to the Medicine Chest' of 1836, p.33 says: “Extract of Colocynth, Compound. This is a very useful and judicious purgative extract, and is much used in constipation of the bowels, in combination with calomel, blue pill, or rhubarb, with a little oil of cloves or cinnamon, to prevent griping. Five grains each of blue pill and compound extract of colocynth, mixed and divided into two pills, and taken at bed-time, is an excellent purgative in bilious affections; and when torpidity of the liver exists, a Seidlitz powder should be taken the following morning to assist its operation. This extract is also much used, in doses of five grains, as warm stomachic laxative, and is well suited for costiveness, so often attendant on people of a sedentary life, and, upon the whole, it is one of the most useful compounds in the pharmacopoeia.”
Blue pills are mercurial pills: Savory 1836, p. 58:
“Mercurial Pill (Blue Pill) – Is a most useful medicine in diseases connected with a diminished secretion of bile, in dyspepsia, scrofula, jaundice, syphilis, and cutaneous eruptions, and is by far the best form for the internal exhibition of mercury: where it is intended to act upon the system as an alternative, it should be administered in doses of from four to six grains; if it occasion any action on the bowels it may be conjoined with opium; in affections of the liver, such as torpidity, or want of proper action in that organ, three or five grains of the blue pill, either alone or mixed with a small proportion of compound extract of colocynth, may be taken once or twice a-week at bed-time, followed by a dose of Seidlitz powders in the morning.”