Improvements in Druggists' Poison Bottles and Cabinets.
Year: 1891

page_text: Date of Application, 1st Aug., 1891
Complete Specification Left, 23rd Apr., 1892-Accepted, 28th May, 1892
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Druggists' Poison Bottles and Cabinets.
I, ALEXANDER MELVILLE CLARK of the firm of A. M. and Wm. Clark of
53 Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Fellow of the Institute of Patent
Agents, do hereby declare the nature of this invention (a communication to me
from abroad by Edward George Kubler, of Akron, Ohio, United States of
America) to be as follows:-
This invention relates to druggists' poison chests or cabinets, and has for its
object to prevent the accidental interchange or misplacement of bottles containing
poisons with other bottles or with one another, for which purpose the poison
bottles when in their proper places are made to act on electric circuit breakers the
bottoms of the bottles being so made that they will only fit their respective seats
or places in the chest or cabinet so that if a bottle be misplaced therein the circuit
will not be broken, and the alarm will be sounded.
It is desirable to make the bottles of different shapes in cross-section, the
morphia bottle being made three-cornered, so that an immediate indication is given
by the sense of touch of the dangerous nature of the contents.
In order that the effective operation of the alarm battery may be ensured, the
bolt or fastening of the chest or cabinet door is operated only by the armature of
an electro-magnet which must therefore be excited by the current from the same
battery before the cabinet can be opened.
These contrivances alone would not, however, prevent several poison bottles
being withdrawn from the chest at same time and the possibility of their being
misplaced when the person using them is weighing and is perhaps called away is
very great.
To obviate this, the precaution should be taken of preventing a second bottle
being withdrawn before the previous one has been returned to its place.
This is likewise effected electrically, the withdrawal of a bottle by opening and
closing contacts rendering it impossible to withdraw another bottle before the first
one has been replaced.
This can be effected in connection with the alarm in the following way :-
Every bottle is enclosed in a special compartment of the cabinet and the doors
of these compartments are held shut by locking bolts or other fastenings which
are connected to the armatures of electro-magnets, contacts being so arranged in
the circuits that the circuits through all the lock releasing electro-magnets will
be broken by opening any one of the doors, so that no other door can be opened.
The same thing occurs if all the doors be shut but one bottle be absent from
the case.
It is only when all the contacts which should normally be closed, are
in the closed position that a door can be opened by closing the circuit through its
bolt-operating electro-magnet.
A practical safeguard against the interchange of bottles in the cabinet is
afforded by moulding or otherwise forming the bottom of each bottle of a special
form to which its seat in the casing corresponds, so that each can only be placed
in its own seat and only in the proper position with its label or name-tablet
towards the front.
Electric circuit controlling and operating devices are also applied upon the tops
or the stoppers of the bottles for the purpose of controlling the removal of the
bottles from their seats in such manner as to prevent the removal of a second

page_text: bottle when one is absent the bottles being in this case detained by such device
instead of by the doors of their compartments being locked as before described.
Dated this 1st day of August 1891.
By A. M. & Wm. Clark,
53, Chancery Lane, London, Patent Agents.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Druggists' Poison Bottles and Cabinets.
I ALEXANDER MELVILLE CLARK of the firm of A. M. & Wm. Clark of
53. Chancery Lane in the County of Middlesex, Fellow of the Institute of Patent
Agents, do hereby declare the nature of this invention (a communication to me
by Edward George Kubler of Akron, Ohio, United States of America) and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement:―
This invention relates to cabinets for holding bottles containing poisons such as
are used by druggists and dispensers, and has for its object to prevent more than
one bottle being withdrawn at a time, and to prevent the accidental interchange
or misplacement of the bottles in the cabinet, for which purpose the access to the
different bottles in the cabinet is controlled by electro-magnetic locking devices,
and the poison bottles are so made that they will only fit their respective scats or
places in the chest or cabinet, and when in their proper seats are made to act on
electric circuit breakers, the electro magnetic mechanism being so arranged and
combined that so long as a bottle is absent another cannot be withdrawn and if a
bottle be misplaced the circuit will not be broken, and in either case an alarm will
continue to be sounded to draw attention to the fact.
Hence, it is rendered impossible to exchange one poison bottle for another
since only a single one can ever be extracted at a time, nor is it possible to
accidentally leave a bottle out of the cabinet or to misplace it, as the continuous
ringing reminds the user of the danger.
The bottom of each bottle is provided with a number, figure, or sign in relief or
countersunk, the seat being made to correspond so that only the right bottle will
fit each seat and, that only in such position that the label will be presented towards
the front.
Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, in which
Figures 1 and 3 show. two sectional elevations of such a bottle and its seat.
Figure 2 shows a plan of the bottle seat, and
Figure 4 a view of the bottle bottom.
Figure 5 is a front view. of the cabinet;
Figure 6.a vertical, section ;
Figure 7 is a diagram of the circuits.
Figures. 8 and 9 show a modification of the cabinet.
The same letters of, reference indicate the same parts in all the figures.
The cabinet, W. has a separate compartment for each bottle B, each compartment
being closed by a hinged flap door G preferably labelled to correspond to the
bottle contained; an opening being left by the door not reaching quite to the
bottom of the compartment, as shown in the drawing, so that when the door G is
shut, the label of the bottle behind will be visible. A spring which presses
against, the lever. arm. L fixed to the door, causes the door G to open directly the
bolt H attached to the armature of an electro-magnet K is retracted by the magnet
overcoming, the: spring k. The bottom of the bottle is moulded with a special
letter, figure,,sign,, or other inequality of surface which fits into the correspondingly
formed seat A, so, that no bottle will fit into the seat of another. When a bottle is
in its proper seat it depresses a push pin 6 situated in the middle of the seat,

page_text: whereby contact is broken between spring c and its abutment d. Instead of
making the bottle bottoms with projections or cavities of different forms, they may
be of varying forms in cross section, the morphia bottle, for example, being made
of triangular form as shown in Figure 7ª so as to indicate its danger by the sense
of touch. All the contact springs c are connected by the conductor c¹ (see Figure 7)
with the one pole of the battery F, whilst the contacts are connected with the
other pole by the conductor d, an electric bell' E being included in the circuit
of d (as also an electro-magnet P for a purpose hereafter described) so that the
bell E will be sounded directly a bottle is removed from its seat, and will not cease
ringing until all the bottles are replaced in their proper seats. In front of each
door & there is a button J which when depressed closes the circuit ; ; supposing all
the contacts M m and the contact SQ be closed, whereby the corresponding
electro-magnet K is excited and, as before mentioned, withdraws the locking bolt H
and allows the corresponding door G to spring open. The contacts M m are in
series in the circuit ; as shown in Figure 7 and are closed by the closing of the
doors G. One pole of each of the electro-magnets K is connected to the stationary
contact S which receives current through the armature Q pressed against it by a
spring of the electro-magnet P in the circuit of the bell. Hence, pressure on the
button only excites the corresponding electro-magnet K and therefore only
allows the door to spring open so long as the electro-magnet P is not excited and
the bell E is not ringing. In other words, no door G can be opened unless all of
them are closed and the circuit complete through all the contacts M m and all of
the bottles are in their right places so that contact will be therefore made at SQ.
As it is therefore impossible to open a door without the whole of the bottles being
in their places, it is likewise impossible to open a door even though all the bottles
be in their right places if another door be open, since the circuit would be
broken at M m. At a suitable point of the circuit d' a key T may be provided
which, so long as it is depressed, closes the circuit which is opened by the excite-
ment of the electro-magnet P, so that should a door G be inadvertently closed
without a bottle being placed in its compartment, this door may, by simultaneous
pressure upon the key T and the corresponding button J, be made to spring
open again. This would be impossible otherwise, the bell ringing during the
absence of one bottle and the circuit by which the electro-magnets K are excited
being broken at P. This key is placed in a locked case accessible only to the
principal.
In the modification shown in Figures 8 and 9, the doors of the compartments
are replaced by fingers or stops V keyed to a rock shaft R carrying an
armature O which is attracted by the electro-magnet K (which is in the same
circuit as the bell) so as to oscillate the shaft R by the closing of the circuit at c_d
consequent on the removal of a bottle from its seat, this oscillation of the shaft R
bringing all the fingers V down into operative position above the stoppers of all
the bottles, so as to prevent the withdrawal of any other bottle so long as one is
absent.
:
If the shaft is in front of the point where the fingers contact with the stoppers,
any attempt to withdraw a bottle wedges the stopper more tightly in place. This
modification is not so good as the arrangements previously described with
reference to the other figures of the Specification, but it is within the scope of my
invention.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is
1st. The combination with a poison cabinet of an electric bell mechanism so
arranged that the bell will ring as long as a bottle remains absent from the cabinet,
or is misplaced therein.
2nd
A noison ahiret wherein the act of onening one compartment or abstracting

page_text: one poison bottle actuates the fastenings of all the remaining compartments and
bottles, and so renders it impossible to abstract two bottles at a time as herein
described.
3rd. A poison cabinet such as referred to in Claim 1 or 2, wherein the removal
of a bottle B from its seat A permits a contact c d to be closed and so complete the
circuit d d through an electric bell E and electro magnet P so that the bell E will
ring and the electro magnet P will attract its armature Q and thereby break the
circuit of the unlocking electro-magnets K of the different compartments, so that
no other compartment can be opened, and in which the contacts M m made by the
closed doors are in series in the circuit j, so that on opening any door this circuit
is broken, whereby the electrical unbolting of a door, by pressing upon the proper
button J, is only possible if the whole of the doors be closed.
4th. In combination with the poison cabinet, the bottles B having their bottoms
adapted to fit only their respective seats, in combination with contacts c d operated
as described whereby the circuit is broken by the proper bottle, but remains closed
should a wrong bottle be placed on the seat of the opened compartment.
Dated this 23rd day of April 1892
A. MELVILLE CLARK,
By A. M. & Wm. Clark,
53, Chancery Lane, London, Chartered Patent Agents.