Free
Medical
#170
Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum
A compact but authoritative survey of British pharmacy: apothecary jars and shop fittings, materia medica (plant, animal and mineral drugs), pill machines and poison bottles tell how a trade professionalised into a science-led healthcare profession.
Opening Hours
Monday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Tuesday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Wednesday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Friday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
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
Inspire your Friends
- 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.
