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Last Tuesday I dug up a 19th century medicine bottle still sealed | Archaeology Discoveries - Vivisector

Last Tuesday I dug up a 19th century medicine bottle still sealed

I was out on a routine survey in rural Ohio, nothing special. We were about 6 hours into a long day, mostly finding broken pottery and rusty nails. Then my trowel hit something that sounded different, like glass but duller. I brushed away the dirt and there it was, a cobalt blue bottle with the cork still in it. Turns out it's an 1880s Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root Kidney Cure bottle, completely intact. The lab says the contents might still be liquid inside. Has anyone else pulled something like this from a site that seemed played out?

3 comments

3 Comments

harperr825mo ago

A buddy of mine was digging a site in Pennsylvania that everyone said was picked clean. He found a little brown bottle with a rubber stopper still in it, turned out to be a late 1800s cure-all for something. The liquid inside had this weird greenish tint to it and he was afraid to open it for months. Finally got it tested and it was mostly just mineral water and some herbs. Still sealed and all, pretty cool find but not worth much I guess.

emma965mo ago

Wasn't Swamp Root a patent medicine, not kidney cure?

the_brian5mo ago

Three different brands of that exact stuff turned up in a barn cleanout my buddy helped with last year. It's wild how many of those old patent medicines claimed to fix your kidneys but were basically just watered down booze with some roots thrown in. The brown bottle your friend found sounds a lot like the Kilmer's Swamp Root ones we've seen. I feel for him being scared to open it for months, I would've been the same way honestly. You never know what's been sitting in there for over a hundred years, could be anything. At least it turned out to be harmless mineral water and herbs instead of something nasty.