Story: Gold and gold mining
Drinking alcohol is an activity usually associated with miners – but their wives and children also indulged. In isolated mining settlements such as Macetown, in the hills near Queenstown, many held the opinion that alcohol was a medicine. The patent medicine ‘Painkiller’, which was high in alcohol, was much relied on, and some Macetown miners became addicted to it when no other alcohol was available.
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Alexander Turnbull Library, Lambie Collection
Reference: 1/2-038592; F
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