My dump weird finds

[49erFrank]

Found a dump in my backyard last winter, total accident. Since then I've taken out 5 dozen bottles in good condition, and a selection of weird items. Dump dates from 1870's to 1920's at the top, apparently never burned or bulldozed so a lot of stuff in good condition.

The area I'm in was a campsite during the gold rush, some of what I find really makes me think about how tough those old time miners must have had it. This first pic shows three bakelite enema nozzles I found, together with a couple of tops to inside threaded bottles. I guess a diet of bacon, flapjacks & beans probably would clog a fella up?

 

[49erFrank]

Pic

Oooops!

 

[49erFrank]

More

This one is driving me crazy. Some kind of suction gun, but for what? The plunger is wrapped in heavy type thread, and the nozzle is about 1/32" in size. Mining tool? Medical device? Any ideas? 14" long, all glass.

 

[49erFrank]

And more

I'm told this is an opium bottle. About 2-1/2" tall & very crude.

 

[surfaceone]

RE: More

Hello 49erFrank,

Welcome to the forums, and thanks for bringing all the cool finds you've made. What a treat to discover a period dump, literally in your own back yard.

This is,

I believe, a male urethral syringe. Check out this one

From.

I think those bakelite or hard rubber nozzles may have had alternative uses, as well. Have you looked up yer backyard on the Sanborns?

 

[cordilleran]

RE: More

Ditto on the syphilis syringe for self-treatment. Opium bottle is a misnomer. Anyone who has been exposed to opium knows it is a tar-like substance and unlikely to be housed in a narrow bottle such as yours. Rather, I have uncovered folded coarse tin wrappers in mining towns and transcontinental railroad camps during the 1960s that still had the scrapings of opium clinging therein. I smoked the 100-year-old remnants. The bottle contained quinine. Malaria was a common disease for people from tropical climes such as the Chinese and granular quinine a popular palliative remedy.

 

[old.s.bottles]

RE: More

ORIGINAL: cordilleran
I smoked the 100-year-old remnants.

It's one thing to smoke opium in the first place, but to smoke 100-year old opium...how was it? lol

 

[Just Dig it]

RE: More

yeah cordo .. i wanna know how that one was..

 

[surfaceone]

RE: More

Wrapper for opium packet. Singapore c.1920

 

[Lordbud]

RE: More

Smoked opium once, not bad stuff. But it wasn't 100 years old either...lucky son of a gun! I've got a labeled with (remnants of) contents local druggist that contains laudanum. But I wouldn't disturb the cork or the contents.