- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Pewter squirt (enema clyster)
- Geographical reference
- England Oxfordshire Oxford University of Oxford All Souls College
- Date / Period
- Date made: Circa 1700
- Date collected
- 1896
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1911
- Materials and processes
- Material Pewter Metal
- Dimensions
- Length: max 110 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1911.29.58
- Research and responses
According to the British History Online article on All Souls College 'In 1753 'the Warden's Stable, ye College Woodhouse and the necessary House' were rebuilt by Townesend. The present necessary house, with its elegant classical portico, probably dates from this time. The other buildings, including the manciple's house, which is in a nondescript Gothic style, more probably date from a second rebuilding in 1828'. 'All Souls College', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 3, the University of Oxford, ed. H E Salter and Mary D Lobel (London, 1954), pp. 173-193 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol3/pp173-193 [accessed 31 March 2015]. [MJD 31/03/2015]
These medical tools were used to give enemas. A clyster is described by the Oxford English Dictionary as being 'a medicine injected into the rectum, to empty or cleanse the bowels, to afford nutrition, etc; an injection, enema; sometimes, a suppository. As a secondary meaning it can be used for the 'pipe or syringe' used in injection. According to wikipedia, clyster syringes were used from the seventeenth century (or before) to the nineteenth century. They were a syringe with a rectal nozzle and a plunger. An apothecary or servant would use the syringe to inject water or other liquid into the colon via the anus. Enemas were thought to ease constipation, stomach ache and other illnesses. Ethnographic collections from the University of Oxford at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Alison Petch, Researcher 'The Other Within' project
Search terms: Tool, Medicine, Toilet, Medical Accessory, Toilet Article