Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum

08/01/2021

2021 is our 180th year anniversary! We've launched our museum’s exhibition https://rphar.ms/history telling the story of the early Apothecaries, through to the founding of RPS and beyond.

How has the Society changed in its 180 year history and grown into the RPS we know today?

09/09/2020

Despite the name, this preparation of ‘Radium’ Buxton Crystal Salts is not radioactive. After its discovery by the Curies in the early 20th century, radium became the new wonder drug and could be found in many everyday products. Find out more in Pharmaceutical Journal https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/your-rps/radium-buxton-crystal-salts-circa-1930/20208320.article

Before its detrimental effects on health were discovered, radium was hailed as a wonder drug in the early 20th century.

02/09/2020

This glass jar contains a suspended specimen of hippopotamus tooth. It was collected by the apothecary John Burges in the late 1700s and at that time it was believed that a ring of hippo tooth could help both haemorrhoids and toothache.

27/08/2020

This image shows the interior of the Heppell and Co. pharmacy in the Hotel Cecil Buildings on the Strand, London. The photo was taken in 1912 and was lit by gaslight, because this pharmacy provided an all-night service, unusual at the time.

19/08/2020

This early flu vaccine was developed by the Royal Army Medical College, around the flu pandemic of 1918, using lung scrapings from infected patients!

14/08/2020

Mithridates' Electuary was a semi-mythical treatment made of over fifty ingredients like saffron, cardamom and rhubarb. In the middle ages it was used to treat Bubonic Plague, but had fallen out of favour by the end of the eighteenth century. You can find out more in this month's Museum Treasure in Pharmaceutical Journal: https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/your-rps/delftware-drug-jar-labelled-e-mithridativm-circa-1720/20208237.article

05/08/2020

Datura Tatula (Jimson W**d) ci******es were introduced by Savory and Moore in the 1870's as a remedy for respiratory conditions and were sold until 1931. The packet claims: 'The fumes of this Plant inhaled generally afford instantaneous relief'.

03/08/2020

“ 1972: Pharmacist John Newstead invited Nationwide into his antique Chemist's shop, where he prepared pills, cachets and potions. He also had a tonsil guillotine - no anaesthetic required... https://t.co/28GQNAZy5P”

27/07/2020

This photograph shows a team of pharmacists working in the dispensary of St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1959. At the time pharmacists were gaining increasing responsibility within hospitals for managing and dispensing medicines.

22/07/2020

This ampoule of penicillin dates to 1941 when the antibiotic was first used. Until then, bacterial infectious diseases could spread to pandemic proportions. Now diseases like typhus can be treated with antibiotics reducing their ability to spread.

15/07/2020

Secret remedies were tantalising during the 18th and 19th centuries. Potential patients were attracted to the drugs because of their mystery. Quack remedies often had laxative qualities to make the taker think they worked but they did not.

13/07/2020

This photo from 1910 shows pharmacist Ada Richardson at work. She is using a pestle and mortar as well as a graduated dispensing measure to prepare a medicine. This photograph just shows how much pharmacy practice has evolved over the last century!

08/07/2020

This photo shows a pharmacology lab at the School of Pharmacy in Brunswick Square, London in the 1960s, a time of significant changes to pharmacy education. 1967 was the first time In the UK that university degrees were a requirement for registration.

06/07/2020

Packets of gelatine lamels, like this one, would have been used to treat Influenza during the 1918 Pandemic. Find out more in Pharmaceutical Journal: https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/your-rps/savory-and-moores-patent-medicated-gelatine-lamels-19151919/20208133.article

17/06/2020

When Edward Jenner developed inoculation, an early form of vaccine, it was met with scepticism. This caricature contains scenes critical of Jenner’s cowpox experiments, which were radical for the time, but a key part in preventing infectious diseases.

16/06/2020

Our latest Museum Treasure is out now!

https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/your-rps/culpeper-type-compound-microscope-1760/20208024.article?firstPass=false

Microscopy lead to many important discoveries and innovations, including germ theory and importance of handwashing.

02/03/2020

Our latest Museum treasure article

https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/your-rps/yardleys-lavender-sellers-19251938/20207680.article

Pharmacies have long sold non-medicinal products, as shown by this figurine advertising Yardley’s old English lavender.

02/01/2020

Hoping that all of our followers have had an excellent start to 2020!

What pharmacy history milestones are you marking this year? To get you started, it's the 200th anniversary of the US Pharmacopoeia, the centenary of the UK's Dangerous Drugs Act, the 70th birthday of chlorpromazine (Largactil) and 10 years since the General Pharmaceutical Council was established.