Must see in Cracow: TOP 10 Museums
Pharmacy Museum, Cracow / Wikimedia / CC / Reytan
Pharmacy Museum
Its full name is the Museum of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical School. It was founded in 1946 and is one of few museums of its kind in the world (another famous example is the one in Heidelberg). Exhibits illustrating the fascinating history of pharmacy, close to alchemy, from medieval to modern times have been gathered in Krakow. You can see pharmaceutical implements: majolica from all over Europe, all kinds of mortars, laboratory equipment and pharmaceutical utensils, medicinal materials, memorabilia of outstanding pharmacists, a philatelic collection on the history of pharmacy and the peculiarities associated with ancient medical care. All of this is located in an attractive "package" because the museum recreates the interior of an eighteenth-century pharmacy and pharmaceutical lab, a cellar with barrels and wine bottles and a medicinal attic, used for drying and storing herbs. There is also furniture from old monastery pharmacies and also, for example, from the Biedermeier and Neo-Baroque Empire. One room is devoted to Ignacy Lukasiewicz - the pharmacist who was also the founder of the oil industry. In the museum library collection, among others are old herbaria, pharmacopoeias, antidotaria and other printed matter relating to the history of pharmacy.