Pharmacy Manuals @museum.de

This media station features a digitised set of the Hirsch Pharmacy manual for the years 1830 to 1900. Pharmacists would jot down tried and tested preparations and prescriptions in hand-written pharmacy manuals. Over time, the formulations were repeatedly modified – for many reasons. Perhaps individual ingredients were unavailable in times of war, and substitutions had to be made. Or medicine and pharmacy had moved on.

Over the years, a priceless wealth of experience specifically relating to the work of a pharmacy was amassed. Today, it helps to provide an overview of a certain period of time – often well over half a century. The pharmacy manuals are supplemented by the manuals that pharmacists create for personal use during their training.

Since the second half of the 19th century, there have been matching lexical collections in printed form of regulations governing in-house preparation at the pharmacy. These include the Pharmaceutical Manual by Eugen Dieterich, a pioneer of the German pharmaceutical industry, and "Technik der Pharmaceutischen Rezeptur", on methods of preparation by the pharmacist Hermann Hager.

On the wall in the passage to the lab, there are two selected formulations from the Hirsch Pharmacy manual mentioned earlier. The Kaiser-Morsellen – or emperor morsels – described there were a popular spiced sweetmeat that was only made and sold in pharmacies.

And now, it’s sadly time for us to say goodbye. We hope you’ve enjoyed your tour of our Pharmacy Museum. Perhaps the next time you go to the chemist’s, you’ll see both the pharmacy and the profession of pharmacist in a different light.

We wish you a safe journey home! And please do give our regards to our fellow pharmacists wherever you live.

Goodbye!