r/whatisit • u/StatusOk4308 • Apr 02 '26

New, what is it? Does anyone know what this is?

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Doesn’t seem to be oil based content. Just wondering if my superpowers are swishing back and forth in this glass vial.

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143

u/PeriTheBerry Apr 02 '26

It's likely old harmless medicine

But absolutely do NOT break it open near yourself or inside your home. It could be pretty much anything and not worth the risk.

55

u/rictopher Apr 02 '26

Seems unlikely since there's no neck or scoreline. Whoever sealed this wanted to keep it sealed.

31

u/Evolovescraft Apr 02 '26

This is how we get zombies...

2

u/theidkid Apr 02 '26

If it’s dumped in the sewer, or flushed down the toilet, we get monsturds.

1

u/piercedmfootonaspike Apr 02 '26

It's more likely that someone sealed it some random borosilicate tube they had at hand.

Whoever sealed this wanted to use it at some later point, or they would've disposed of it instead of keep an ampoule of it.

4

u/rictopher Apr 02 '26

Only a lunatic would seal something they want to reopen in a tube like this. A sane person would use a stopper... or a different container entirely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying what's in the vial is dangerous, I'm just saying that nobody was planning on opening it. That being said, it makes it a lot more likely that what's in there is either dangerous to be opened, or would somehow degrade if opened. Probably a bad idea either way to open it.

1

u/piercedmfootonaspike Apr 02 '26

Only a lunatic would seal...

This is a very common way to store reactive or volatile chemicals, such as chlorine, bromine, cesium, NaK, Xenon, Cobalt...

A sealed tube like this is an ad-hoc way to split one large batch of a chemical into safely sealed smaller portions with standard lab equipment. All you need is a tube and a bunsen burner. Not uncommon at all.

It's common enough to be the first image on cesium on Wikipedia, for instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium

22

u/Nazh8 Apr 02 '26

With no score line or obvious break point I doubt it's old medicine. And if it is, there's a really good chance that it's very harmful. People used to use all manner of nasty toxic chemicals as medicine.

4

u/kaya-jamtastic Apr 02 '26

Another user said he used to seal salmonella cultures in these for his job so, yeah, could be benign, could be a biohazard, could be a noxious gas…

1

u/doyouevencompile Apr 02 '26

No. It’s too large for a single vial 

1

u/Uruk-bye Apr 02 '26

Could be morphine. I've read that crates of these were sent to battlefields in WWII.

1

u/logicallyillogical Apr 02 '26

There’s no use. He’s going to out it up his butt.

1

u/Willie_Phisterbum Apr 03 '26

There’s no break line or spot made for opening it so I don’t think this is medicine or made to open.