Michelstadt Council Pharmacy
The Rats-Apotheke in the Große Gasse 2 in Michelstadt is one of the oldest pharmacies in Hesse and was supposedly founded in 1551. In any case, it is certain that there was a pharmacy in 1678.
history
Possible foundation in 1551
The inscription on the pharmacy building shows that 1551 was the year the pharmacy was founded. Since the documents in the velvet archive of the Counts of Erbach in Darmstadt were burned, the accuracy of this statement can no longer be checked today. Michelstadt was the residence of the Counts of Erbach-Fürstenau and one of the main places in the Odenwald . The first pharmacies emerged as court pharmacies in residential cities, so it cannot be ruled out that the information is correct. However, Michelstadt had 315 inhabitants in 1523 (1666 only 300). It is doubtful whether a pharmacy was economical for a place of this size. In the neighboring Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt , the Darmstädter Hofapotheke (later the Löwenapotheke ) was not built until 1629.
Founded in 1678
On June 8, 1678, the pharmacist Johann Caspar Kummer from Soest received the privilege of running a pharmacy from Count Georg zu Erbach. From the fact that the order includes a reimbursement of costs of 12 Reichstalers for setting up a pharmacy, it can be concluded that there was none before. On January 24, 1683, pharmacist Kummer married Juliane Selig. The job title pharmacist is also recognizable from the church book entry.
The first pharmacy building
According to tradition, the pharmacy was located in the house at Grosse Gasse 2, on the corner of Marktplatz. This two-storey half-timbered semi-detached house dates from the 16th century and is a listed building . The house shows unspoilt half-timbering with storey-high struts and three St. Andrew's crosses in the gable. On the ground floor there is a room with a stucco ceiling in the form of a medallion with a diameter of 1.5 meters and the inscription: "NON EST MORTALE QUOD OPTO" ("It is nothing mortal that I wish for"). The Madaillon shows a seated woman with a tire in her right hand from which smoke rings come out. The motif and lettering can support the thesis of the pharmacy seat. The northern half of the house was built in 1685, after the pharmacy was founded. The house has been an inn "Zum Güldenen Engel" since 1695.
Another story
In 1687 Kummer asked for his release, which he was granted. In the following years Michelstadt was without a pharmacist. In 1693 the Weinheim pharmacist Maximilian Peter Böhm von Schirandob acquired pharmacy equipment for the Michelstädter Hofapotheke. However, since he was based in Weinheim according to the Weinheim church records and council minutes, he probably only worked part-time in Michelstadt. It was not uncommon at the time for neighboring rulers to employ a common court pharmacist. On December 25, 1692, Böhm married Maria Hornemann, the widow of the Weinheim pharmacist Friedrich Barawart Hornemann. In his second marriage on February 27, 1698, he married Marie Susanne Schippel, the widow of the Worms pharmacist Georg Johann Schippel. He then moved to Worms and ran the pharmacy there.
His successor as a pharmacist in Michelstadt was Georg Christoffel Billing. He married Maria Jacobina Berghold von Dinkelsbühl in 1699, received citizenship in 1703 and was a school hotter from 1712 to 1714 . After his death on December 24th, 1741, Georg Wilhelm Neddelbeck has been handed down, who on July 11th, 1743 as a “pharmacist here” in Michelstadt , married the daughter of the Rimhorn pastor, Johanna Louysa Müller. In August 1745 Neddelbeck received the title court pharmacist and the freedom of personnel from the Count of Erbach and Fürstenau.
The pharmacy building "Volksches Haus"
The location of the pharmacy under Apotheker Neddelbeck emerges from a site plan for Michelstadt from 1753. It is the "Volksche Haus" in Grosse Gasse 12. This important half-timbered house in a corner was built in 1557 by the councilor Georg Strieder. It had been divided since 1695, half of which had been in the court pharmacy since 1708 according to an entry in the monument protection list. On the plan mentioned, the entry reads “Hofapotheke, Billing'sche Erben, modo Nettelbeck, G (eor) g, Wilh (elm)”. This also suggests that the house was already used as a pharmacy before Billing. The massive ground floor has a round arched portal decorated with Renaissance profiles (now a shop window), the apex of which is dated to 1557, above it a half-timbered bay window. The upper floor consists eaves of younger, constructive framework, the original north gable contrast, consists of rich Renaissance truss with numerous andirons and Andreas crosses above four-sided cantilevered Walmschopf, strong profiled Rähmkranz in eaves. Verso vorgeblattete bars .
Another story
Neddelbeck, who died on October 29, 1756, was succeeded by the widow's eldest brother, Johann Christoph Hermann Müller. After his death on January 12, 1764, the court pharmacy fell back to Neddelbeck's widow Johanna Louisa, who sold the pharmacy to the pharmacist Johann Jacob Odenwald on March 21, 1764.
As part of this sale, the brothers Count Ludwig Friedrich Carl Eginhardt and Georg Albrecht zu Erbach granted the new court pharmacist an exclusive privilege on April 11, 1764 to operate the only pharmacy in the county. Pharmacist Odenwald received the title of court pharmacist again and on October 7, 1766 married Sophia Dorothea Cranz, the daughter of the Michelstädter pastor Johann Conrad Cranz.
Odenwald died on July 12, 1770 and the widow inherited the pharmacy. Her brother Johann Ludwig Cranz managed the pharmacy as a provisional and became the sole heir after the widow's death on August 10, 1781. On October 3rd of this year, Count Ludwig and Friedrich August zu Erbach confirmed the pharmacy privilege and the title of court pharmacist. Between 1806 and 1814, Cranz was also a town scholar.
In 1811 Cranz sold the pharmacy to Philipp Wilhelm Luck, his future son-in-law. Luck had previously worked for him for four years as an apprentice and two years as a journeyman. On April 20, 1811, the Graflich Erbach-Fürstenauische Rentkammer confirmed the privileges and accepted him as a citizen and court pharmacist in Michelstadt.
The counts had meanwhile been mediated and no longer entitled to this approval. The government of the Starkenburg province therefore insisted on an examination by the college in Darmstadt, which Luck passed on June 5, 1811. For the background to the following, see Pharmacy in Hessen-Darmstadt . The protocol of the takeover revision of September 12, 1811 shows that the pharmacy was still located in the Große Gasse / Untere Pfarrgasse building.
On December 12, 1812, the Grand Ducal Government confirmed the exclusive privilege of Luck. At the same time, the government reprimanded the Rentkammer for granting the privilege inadmissible in the previous year. In the reply from the Rentkammer dated March 4, 1813, the Chamber acknowledged its mistake, but in return accused the government of not actually wanting to renew the privilege at all, but of licensing a pharmacy in Reichelsheim . On April 27, 1813, the Rentkammer was sentenced to a fine, which was repealed on June 29, 1813 for mercy. Indeed, the government planned to open a pharmacy in Reichelsheim. The protests of the neighboring pharmacists against this could not prevent this project, but at least delay it until 1834.
On April 10, 1826, the foundation stone for the new pharmacy building in Bahnhofstrasse was laid.
Philipp Wilhelm Luck died on March 9, 1852. An inheritance dispute arose between two of his sons, who had both become pharmacists. Initially, Ludwig Carl Eduard Luck (born April 2, 1819), a son from his first marriage, worked as a leaseholder of the pharmacy until 1856. After he had moved to Darmstadt in 1856, he applied for his assistant Wilhelm Werle to be sworn in as a provisional officer. Friedrich Wilhelm August Luck (born November 28, 1833), a son from his second marriage, applied to the government for the pharmacist's privilege. The lawyer for the children from the first marriage contradicted this. After the pharmacy no longer had a responsible manager, the district office temporarily closed the pharmacy on January 16, 1857 and appointed Wilhelm Werle as provisional on January 24, 1857.
At the beginning of 1860 Eduard Luck applied again to the government for a license as a pharmacist. The government was ready to allow this, but only as a personal non-alienable right. Eduard Luck refused, invoking the fact that his inherited privilege was an alienable real privilege. In a letter dated May 21, 1860, the government gave in and confirmed the real privilege.
In March 1869, Luck sold the pharmacy to the pharmacist Christoph Heß from Wald-Michelbach for 30,000 guilders . The government confirmed his concession on June 30, 1869 as a personal, inalienable right. After his death on January 27, 1902, his widow leased the pharmacy to the pharmacist Max Lombard, who died in 1922. On August 1, 1922, the widow Hess leased to the pharmacist Dr. Kiesgen. After the widow's death on June 5, 1931, the lease ended. Dr. Kiesgen moved to Fulda, the Michelstädter pharmacy was run by Dr. Julius Schweißinge, who remained the pharmacist until 1957 until 1857. After two more pharmacies had opened in town in 1950, he renamed his "old pharmacy" to "Rats-Apotheke". In 1958 Friedrich Wilhelm Schroeter bought the pharmacy and leased it to Klaus Kirschner in 1969.
literature
- Ute Rausch: The medical and pharmacy system of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt and the Grand Duchy of Hesse with special attention to the province of Starkenburg. Dissertation. 1978, DNB 780617754 , p. 367 ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse (ed.): Große Gasse 2 In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse
- ↑ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Große Gasse 12 In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse
Coordinates: 49 ° 40 ′ 43.7 " N , 9 ° 0 ′ 13.5" E