A man in bed in a hospital ward receiving penicillin. Drawing by Anna Zinkeisen, 194-.

The penicillin is supplied from the machine shown in the foreground: it is an electric-driven syringe, which is plugged into the electric light as a source of power. It drives a syringe containing a fixed amount of a light brown fluid, which is injected along a rubber tube that passes under the bedclothes and then possibly into the patient's thigh. Between the syringe and the patient, the drug passes through two capsules which are designed to prevent air-bubbles from entering the patient's bloodstream

The machine was described by Dr C. E. Last, medical officer, Queen Mary's Hospital for Children (L.C.C.), Carshalton (evacuated to Dryburn Emergency Hospital, Durham) in 1945. It was manufactured by Willen Bros. Ltd., of 44, New Cavendish Street, London W1, and used by Last at Dryburn Emergency Hospital

[between 1940 and 1949?]

1 drawing : crayons, in colours ; sheet 34.6 x 45.1 cm

Attributed to Anna Katrina Zinkeisen (1901-1976), apparently on stylistic grounds, though the previous owner, from whom the attribution comes, may have had some other reason for the attribution. She worked as a volunteer in the St John Ambulance Brigade at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London, apparently from 1939 to ca. 1945. Some of her drawings of flesh wounds, apparently made in St Mary's, are in the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The present drawing may also be set in St Mary's

C. E. Last, 'Instrument for continuous and accurate administration of penicillin intramuscularly', British medical journal, 27 January 1945, i: 122

Wellcome Collection 576651i