March 21, 2014

The Beauty Inside the German Pharmacy Museum, Heidelberg

While, in Germany, I had the delight of visiting the Castle of Heidelberg, located on the grounds of the castle was Deutsches Apotheken Museum, in English the German Pharmacy Museum. The price of the castle ticket included a visit to the museum.

This museum was established in 1957 on the ground Schloss castle.
The museum's collection has over 20,000 items on display. From a scientist, to a pharmacist, or a museum lover like me you will enjoy the history of the pharmacy.


This painting titled Christ as a pharmacist, Austria, 1st half of the 18th century is among the first items that you see when entering the museum. The plaque that explained the painting reads. . .

Worldly medicine may be able to help the mortal body of man, but real healing and salvation can only be found with Christ. This is the message of the picture, presenting Christ as a pharmacist in the heavenly pharmacy. The soul balance indicates the Last Judgement, the three Christian cardinal virtues faith, love and hope are symbolized by chalice, heart, and anchor on the prescription table, and numerous further soul medicament's are depicted on the left. In the background, Jesus is healing a blind man.

The rooms are filled with Chemist's shops through the ages, I was awestruck at the beauty of the apothecary bottles that were used.




This chemists table was made in the early 19th century, is made of cherry wood, and was originally housed at 'Crown Pharmacy' in Ulm.

Pharmacy vessels used in days gone by.



Scales, spoons, crushers all items used to make medicine.

This pharmacy vignette came from the Ursulene convent, Austria, circa 1730.

The table in the center of this vignette was used as the pharmacist work table, customers were not permitted inside the pharmacy to collect the prescriptions. Notice on the upper left side of the photo the silhouette of a woman in the window? This was the pickup window.


These beautiful vessels with vivid colors were one of my favorites.

The Deutsches Apotheken Museum, was a fun place to browse.

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5 comments:

  1. Now there is a museum that I would have loved to visit with you. Fascinating!

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  2. You are right! Lovely apothecary jars! I have looked for them for years at flea markets and rummage sales, but I can only find amber medicine bottles. Glad you had a good time in the museum. Linda@Wetcreek Blog

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  3. How awesome was that visit?!?!? Another memory made so easily!...:)JP

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  4. Amazing containers and fascinating to see it all. I work in a hospital and we have some old medicine containers and various old items of equipment including a couple of poison bottles which are brown but have gorgeous heart shaped stoppers. Its amazing how medicine has moved on over the years.

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  5. While I have visited the castle in Heidelberg, I did not tour (or know about) this museum. Thanks for sharing your visit in pictures. What an interesting museum, I'm sorry I missed it. Maybe a return trip is in order? :) The pretzel sandwich I got from a street vendor in Heidelberg is still one of the best things I've ever eaten!

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