A rare vintage hygienic glass baby feeder designed for premature babies. This small Emarco Premature Feeding Bottle was made in England. It has a patent number embossed on the neck of one end: 336782. Measurements for tablespoons and ounces are embossed on each side. The banana-shaped bottle has a flat base.

Clear glass banana-shaped baby bottles were praised as being the saviour of a high percentage of bottle-fed babies in the early 20th century.

That's because they were quite easy to clean, and the clear glass made it simple to check that no bacteria-forming gunk was left from previous feeds. Its predecessors were thought to have killed countless Victorian babies. A ceramic version from the 1840s, for example, hid lots of bacterial gunk.

Clear glass banana shaped feeders replaced an earlier baby milk feeder dubbed 'The Killer' whose design made it difficult to clean.

The clear glass banana bottle with a teat and valve was invented in 1894 by Allen & Hanbury’s. The design was modified for about 15 years until the final design, the 'Allenbury Feeder', was launched in 1910. Apparently, the design remained the same for the next 50 years.