This notebook (241 pages) contains medicinal recipes as well as instructions for making other health, beauty, and household products. It contains several newspaper clippings and paper inserts, including one letter by Pierre Du Bois.
The entries are arranged alphabetically, with tabs marking each letter. The volume bears a torn origin label of Piccadilly, "...chester" on inside front cover. Concoctions include beauty lotion, cordials, kola koka, blood purifier, and cures for St. Vitus's Dance, anemia, and dandruff. Also present are tinctures, salves, ointments, cures, and preventatives. A few agricultural items respect calf drench and a substance for ewes after lambing. Some newspaper clippings respect aquarium cement and curry powder. Additional paper inserts include various formulas, a letter from Pierre to his father, and basic Spanish phrases on a sheet with the Venezuelan Consulate (Baltimore) letterhead.
Leon Dubois was born about 1855 in France. He was a scientist, principal of the Berlitz School of Languages, and honorary consul for Venezuela and Brazil in the United States. He also served as head of the French Section of the Maryland Academy of Sciences and was a member of the French Academy and the Rumanian Royal Academy. He married Mary Elizabeth Dubois (d. 1952) and had more than ten children (several possibly from a previous marriage). He died December 27, 1931, in Baltimore, Maryland.
Leon Dubois's son Pierre Du Bois was born October 16, 1876, in France or Manchester, England. He immigrated to the United States around 1901 and settled in Washington, D.C. He worked as a librarian for the Army Medical Library and as a pharmacist after studying at the American International Academy. He married Mary Adelle Du Bois and they had one daughter, Marie Ross Dubois (1908-1990). Pierre Du Bois died of a heart attack on January 5, 1943, in Washington, D.C.
