packaging as content

September 2, 2010

Rat Bottles

Cowley’s embossed rat poison bottle from Ruby Lane

Couldn’t do an entire “animal bottle” week without finding at least one rat bottle: Cowley’s Original Rat & Mouse Poison came in bottles with an embossed rat. (Not super-old, just 1940s old.)

I might have preferred to find some rat-shaped “bitters” bottles similar to yesterday’s pig bottles. But if being partial to rats, means I have to write about rat poison, then so be it…

The active ingredient in Cowley’s rat poison (it should be noted) was arsenic…

Among our cases, liquid rodenticide was the most common source of arsenic for both intentional and unintentional poisonings in Mississippi. Fifteen of the 27 unintentional poisonings… were by ingestion of a liquid rodenticide… One recent Mississippi case of an accidental arsenic poisoning involveding three children occurred when a mother poured arsenic-based rodenticide over crackers and left them on the floor overnight. Three of her children ate the poisoned crackers the next morning. Specifically, Cowley’s Rat and Mouse Poison was named as the brand of arsenic-containing rodenticide in each of the 16 cases where a brand name was recorded. This product is no longer being manufactured, and thus its registration with the Mississippi Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industries, has not been renewed since 1988. Previously stocked bottles of this rodenticide, however, remain on Mississippi store shelves, available for open public purchase.

Arsenic Exposures in Mississippi: A Review of Cases
Mary Jane Park, BS, and Mary Currier, MD, MPH, Jackson, Miss
Southern Medical Journal, April 1991

I did find one non-poisonous rat bottle similar to one of Tuesday’s squirrel bottles.

(One last photo, after the fold…)