#170
Opening Hours
Monday: 09:00 – 17:00
Tuesday: 09:00 – 17:00
Wednesday: 09:00 – 17:00
Thursday: 09:00 – 17:00
Friday: 09:00 – 17:00
What's not to miss inside?
Apothecary’s Shop in Miniature
Ceramic albarelli, carboys and drawers show how pharmacists stored and dispensed remedies from the 17th–19th centuries.Painted jar labels (theriac, jalap, rhubarb) are a crash course in Latin drug names and trade routes.
📍 Front display run
Materia Medica & Making Medicines
Specimens and kit—mortars, percolators, pill-rounders, suppository moulds—cover the craft behind dosing.From cinchona bark (quinine) to digitalis leaves, raw materials travel from bench to bottle.
📍 Central cases
Poisons, Patents & ‘Quackery’
Skull-and-crossbones bottles, Pharmacy Act notices (1868) and satirical prints reveal how regulation confronted risky cures.Humour and hazard sit side by side: caricatures lampoon miracle elixirs while new laws restrict toxic sales.
📍 Side cases and print wall
Pharmacy & Public Health
Adverts and advice leaflets show chemists as front-line educators on vaccination, hygiene and self-care.Window displays and branded packaging turned professional expertise into public trust.
📍 Poster rail
🤓 Fun Facts
The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was founded in 1841 to standardise training and ethics; later royal recognition cemented its leadership in the profession.
Britain’s 1868 Pharmacy Act created schedules for poisons and restricted their sale to qualified chemists—many ‘skull’ bottles survive because the law mandated clear labelling.
Materia medica once included animal-derived remedies (e.g., cod-liver oil, cantharides); the museum’s specimens chart the shift to purified chemicals and later synthetic drugs.
