German Pharmacy Museum
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The since 1957 in Heidelberg -based German Pharmacy Museum is the central German Museum for the History of Pharmacy . It has extensive collections, the exhibits of which cover the entire German-speaking area from antiquity to the 21st century. One of the most popular museums in Germany has been built right here in Heidelberg Castle , with around 700,000 guests per year .
history
The museum was founded in 1937 as a non-profit foundation . The basis of the collection was the then largest private collection of German pharmacy history owned by Walter Heinrici , which was "transferred to the German Pharmacy Museum at the instigation of Reichsapothekerführer Schmierer ...". In addition, there were donations from the profession and several private collections, including Betty Rath's majolica collection, which was given as a gift. The museum opened in Munich in 1938 .
In 1943, the museum building was almost completely destroyed in the Second World War . Much of the collection had already been relocated to protect it by that time. After the Second World War, the evacuated holdings were moved to the new residence of the undestroyed city of Bamberg . However, the rooms there were too small to accommodate the museum permanently. An alternative was found in the rooms of Heidelberg Castle , where the continuously expanded collection has been located since 1957. It is distributed over eleven rooms of the palace, the Ottheinrichsbau, the Ludwigsbau and the pharmacy tower. There is a simulated alchemist's kitchen under the apothecary tower. The curator from 1957 to 1982 was the pharmacist Werner Luckenbach .
The museum work is funded by the Friends of the Museum (Förderverein Deutsches Apotheken-Museum e.V.) and the ABDA - Federal Association of German Pharmacists' Associations , which appoints the voluntary foundation board every four years.
Exhibits
The exhibition shows, among other things, seven complete pharmacy furnishings ( offices , herbal chamber) from the Renaissance , Baroque and Biedermeier periods, as well as a dispenser from the 1930s. There is also the world's largest collection of enamel-painted glasses from the 18th century and technical glasses from the 17th to 19th centuries . Century. The museum also shows valuable majolica and faience from the 16th to 18th centuries. Century and powerful mortars from the 15th – 20th centuries. Century. The exhibits also include valuable home and travel pharmacies and old pharmacy symbols from lion, unicorn and swan pharmacies are presented. From the modern era, porcelain vessels can be seen as drafts of modern product designs from the post-war period, as well as pharmacy symbols in the Bauhaus style . The tour through the permanent exhibition, which is explained in German and English, concludes with the presentation of a laboratory in the domed apothecary tower of the castle.
Another focus of the collection is the medication collection (" Materia medica ") in the middle of the tour , in which the medicines from the mineral, animal and plant kingdoms common in the 17th and 18th centuries are exhibited. These include well-known substances such as spices or cocoa, which were formerly sold in pharmacies, but also “magical” substances such as mandrake , bezoar stones , mumia and others. Milestones in drug development of the 20th century are also presented, such as the first penicillin packs .
Collection holdings
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The museum has an extensive inventory of objects that is constantly being expanded. Therefore - as is the case with many large museums - only part of the collection can be shown in the permanent exhibition. Objects from the magazine that cannot be viewed all the time are presented to the public in temporary exhibitions and in the richly illustrated museum guide of the German Pharmacy Museum.
A selection of collection focuses from the 15th to the 20th century are pharmacy commemorations, pharmacy officers, pharmacy symbols and signs, medicinal drugs and finished medicinal products. In addition, the museum collects postage stamps, graphics, manuscripts and archive material such as files, certificates, etc., including pharmacy privileges, teaching letters, pharmacy regulations and manuscripts from famous pharmacists, pharmacopoeias , medicine taxes (fee regulations for medicines that differed greatly from region to region), herbal and pharmacopoeia . In addition, house and first-aid kits, mortars and mortars, recipe devices and laboratory equipment, standing, storage and dispensing vessels, technical glasses as well as scales and weights are collected. The collection also focuses on industrialization , medals and military pharmacy.
Pharmacy garden
The German Pharmacy Museum also operates a pharmacy garden, the planting of which is based on historical plant books, including a catalog by the electoral court pharmacist Philipp Stefan Sprenger (around 1536 - before 1608).
Since the garden is in a part of the palace complex that is not open to the public, it can only be visited with guided tours. These can be booked directly at the German Pharmacy Museum.
Mediation offer
The German Pharmacy Museum has a wide range of guided tours and educational services: the overview tour as well as around 20 different special tours (from children's birthdays to topics such as alchemy, plague, spices, poison, etc.) and practical modules (including how to make ointments, roll pills, etc.) offered for groups by appointment. Audio guides can be borrowed in German, English, French and Spanish.
See also
literature
- Elisabeth Huwer: The German Pharmacy Museum - treasures from two millennia of cultural and pharmaceutical history. 2nd Edition. Schnell u Steiner publishing house, Regensburg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-2061-1 .
- The German Pharmacy Museum In: On the history of the German pharmacy. Historical supplement to the Deutsche Apotheker-Zeitung. Year 1936/37, number 9/10/11, July / August / September 1937, p. 25.
- The German Pharmacy Museum. 8-page supplement to the Pharmazeutische Zeitung, appears once a year.
- Eckart Roloff and Karin Henke-Wendt: The pharmacists' guild through the ages. (German Pharmacy Museum, Heidelberg) In: Visit your doctor or pharmacist. A tour through Germany's museums for medicine and pharmacy. Volume 2, Southern Germany. Verlag S. Hirzel, Stuttgart 2015, pp. 48-50, ISBN 978-3-7776-2511-9 .
Web links
- Website of the German Pharmacy Museum
- German Pharmacy Museum . In: Schloss-Heidelberg.de
- German Pharmacy Museum at museum-digital
Coordinates: 49 ° 24 ′ 40 " N , 8 ° 42 ′ 55.4" E