Health Sciences · Hospital for Sick Children
A rectangular cardboard printed in white, black, and teal, contains five small (8cm tall) brown-tinted glass bottles with white caps. The bottles are labelled in the same colours as the box. Unopened bottles have a paper collar between the cap and the neck of the bottle.
The box also contains an instructional pamphlet.
Accession Number: 2025.sk.20
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Glass, Cardboard
Package labeling includes the following information:
Printed on the side of the box and on individual bottles: “LOT D827 795”
Printed on several places on the box and on individual bottles: “No. 6864”
Note that the instructional booklet includes the date “1968” which likely refers to the latest revision of the text.
(Box) Height = 8, Width = 3, Length = 13.5.
These 15ml bottles contain the general anesthetic Methoxyflurane (identified by the brand name Penthrane). Methoxyflurane is an inhalation anesthetic introduced in the 1960s. It fell out of use beginning in the 1970s due to an association with nephrotoxicity at higher doses (see Porter et al. 2018).
The small quantities of these phials were meant to be used with draw-over inhalers such as those depicted on the back of the packaging. One such inhaler, the Duke University Inhaler, is catalogued here. (The catalogued example was meant to be used with a different anesthetic, Trilene/ Trichloroethylene.)
Condition:
Associated Instruments:
Abbott Laboratories Ltd., Montreal, Canada.
Date of Manufacture: c. 1968
Provenance:
Keith M. Porter, Anthony D Dayan, Sara Dickerson, and Paul M Middleton. (2018) “The Role of Inhaled Methoxyflurane in Acute Pain Management.” Open Access Emergency Medicine 10 (2018): 149–64.
Anon (2006) “Company News: Abbott Canada Celebrates 75 Years of Turning Science into Caring.” Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing. April 2006. (Archived 7 May, 20205).
In 1931, Abbott Laboratories of North Chicago, Illinois, an international affiliate in Montreal, Canada. This was founded on the Canadian operations Swan Meyer, Co. of Indianapolis, Indiana, which Abbott had acquired in 1930.