Vienna Hofburg - Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum, Silver Collection

This 63-piece medicine chest was part of the empress’s luggage. As well as numerous mustard plasters, bandages, salves and vials it also contains a syringe filled with cocaine. At that time opiates were used differently to the way they are now in modern medicine. Cocaine was valued for its antispasmodic and antidepressant effects, and it was administered intravenously in the case of menstrual pain and during the menopause.www.hofburg-wien.at | Download Tour-Guide (PDF)© by Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H.