What Is It? January 2018

We had one correct answer to our January What Is It. Dottie Unruh of Lakewood, Colorado said, “It is a feeding device for feeding liquids to infants or to the ill.” Dottie has won a year’s subscription to the Mountain States Collector. Congratulations!

Pictured to the right is an early Roman glass nursing bottle. It is extremely rare. After the fall of Rome, glass was rarely used to make nursers until the 19th Century. French scientist Louis Pasteur demonstrated that bacteria in nursing equipment could cause fatal infections in infants. Rubber nipples and sterilization eliminated the bacteria, enabling nursing bottles to become the safe equipment they are today.