Saving explorers and healing Amazonians: a history of the Tabloid medicine chest used in Hamilton Rice’s 1919-1920 Amazon expedition

This paper draws connections and parallels between the promoted objective of Burroughs Wellcome & Co.'s Tabloid medicine chests and the capitalist and scientific ideals related to modernising the Amazon, which were advanced by the physician and geographer Alexander Hamilton Rice. Using an object-biographical approach, I explore the context of the promotional discourse surrounding the Tabloid chests and detail the contents of the medicine chest Rice carried throughout his 1919-1920 expedition, considering the pathological imaging fostered by the company and its customer. The relationships between this marketing discourse and Rice's search for scientific recognition and publicity as a quintessential explorer are also analysed.