Three and half years ago, they found an old doctor's case tucked away in a cupboard at Bourke Street Health Service (BSHS) with a handwritten note attached.

The case, estimated to be about 50 years old, wore the marks of being well used - rusted edges, tiny tears in the black leather coating - and carried a moment of medical history when pills were brightly coloured. Some were so dangerous they had to be destroyed.

But its most intriguing feature was the handwritten tag attached to the chapped handle.

READ MORE:

Written in cursive in black pen, its words were as though the writer wanted someone to find the bag one day and solve who he or she was. Those words on the tag are:

This 'black bag' was used by my brother-in-law Dr Varnum Southworth M.D. in Cambridge, Maryland, USA. He was a U.S.N reservist, and was in the Guadalcanal campaign, where he became ill and subsequently died. I got the bag after WW2 and used it in my GP days.

So who is 'I'?

Who is the GP who owned the bag - that is the mystery the Goulburn Hospital Historical Cataloguing Volunteer Group has been trying to figure out.

One of the volunteers, Jenny Sullivan, said she had searched online for a link between the mysterious GP's brother-in-law, Dr Varnum Southworth, and Goulburn, but could not find one.

"We've been hoping to find a connection between Dr Varnum and the GP who may have used the case in Goulburn," Jenny said.

"But it's still a mystery to us. We're hoping someone in the community might recognise the bag and know who it belonged to."

Jenny said when the volunteers first opened the case it was lined on both sides with glass vials of bright coloured pills.

"I'd never seen anything like it," Jenny said.

The pills, which included Phenergan and Adrenaline Hydrochloride among many more, were taken to a pharmacy and destroyed, but the glass vials have been kept in the bag.

The volunteers plan to fill them with replica pills.

It is one of almost 5000 historical items the volunteers have found at BSHS and the Goulburn Base Hospital.

In 2018, seven volunteers from various Goulburn museums and three ex-nurses were invited to locate, catalogue and store items of historical significance that were scattered throughout the hospitals.

Most of the items in the collection are circa 1940s-1970s and include artefacts such as nurses' uniforms, medical equipment, hospital domestic equipment, photographs, charts, medical books, and banners.

The volunteers will continue to meet once a fortnight to work on the collection and contribute to future displays that will showcase the hospitals' heritage in the new Clinical Services Building.

The $150 million Goulburn Hospital and Health Service Redevelopment received an uplift of $15 million in this year's State budget. This builds on the NSW Government's extensive investment in health facilities across the district.

The NSW Government is investing in health facilities across the Southern NSW Local Health District. This includes $24.2 million for the Cooma Hospital Redevelopment, the redevelopment of the Yass Hospital and Braidwood MPS as part of the Government's $297 million Multipurpose Service Program.

If anyone in the community can help the volunteers solve who the GP was who owned the doctor's case, please email Goulburn Health Service Volunteer Coordinator Katherine Lee at katherine.lee2@health.nsw.gov.au

We depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support.