Pewter Syringe

About the Item

When taking medicines, most patients would prefer to eat or drink them. However, sometimes medicines were administered in more unpleasant ways.

This pewter syringe with a brass needle was used to inject medicine rectally (this means putting the remedy into the patient’s bottom).

William Shakespeare’s son-in-law, physician John Hall, wrote about a medical procedure where he used a syringe similar to this to inject ‘Chicken-broth’, oil and salt of tartar into the bottom of a patient called Edith Stoughton. According to John Hall, Edith was cured of her ‘distemper’.

Doctors today would definitely not recommend trying this!

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CC-BY-NC-ND Image Courtesy of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust