Apothecary Pharmacist Balance Scale Brass & Mahogany Basins 7 Weights.
Apothecary Pharmacist Balance Scale, Brass, Comes With Basins, 7 Weights, a Brass Fitting Marked EYE, Base Mahogany Box, Brass Drawer Handle.
The Pharmacist Of Old
Stepping inside onto the original Belgian stone floor takes a visitor back in time. Majestic hand-carved mahogany cabinets line the walls from floor to ceiling. They hold handblown apothecary jars labelled in gold and filled with ancient chemicals, crude drugs, and herbs such as foxglove, belladonna, eyebright, feverfew, and opium poppy from which the pharmacist compounded his preparations. Mortars and pestles of diverse sizes, shapes, and materials perch like pigeons on the lower shelves.
Near the entrance stands a white, lidded ceramic jar labelled “Leeches” and beside it, a water-filled mason jar containing living leeches. The display underscores the gravity and prevalence of the old practice of bloodletting. Glass cabinets nearby hold pill rollers, suppository moulds, blue glass poison bottles, rice-flour wafers that were filled with medicines to make swallowing them easier, and thin sheets of gold and silver leaf to coat lozenges. Instruments include saws for amputating limbs, a tonsil guillotine, and a huge pewter hypodermic syringe. Lancets and shallow basins used to take blood, and antique scales in their original protective glass cases, once used to weigh out herbs and prescriptions, represent further facets of the pharmacist’s job.
A black marble pharmacist’s counter looks ready for customers. At hand above the counter are pharmacopoeias, official registers describing the properties, preparation, and use of drugs and other medicines. By the nineteenth century, pharmacopoeias had replaced the herbals that had provided both medical and gardening information since the Middle Ages. The first U.S. Pharmacopoeia, drawn up by a convention of doctors and pharmacists in 1820, describes such “official” herbs as Salvia officinalis (garden sage) and Melissa officinalis (lemon balm) as well as drugs than in use. In 1888, the American Pharmaceutical Association published the first National Formulary, establishing standards for the strength, quality, and purity of drugs. Individual pharmacists manufactured their own drugs, with most of the active principles coming from medicinal plants.
Item Code - TOO7E708DA
Width : 10 5/8" Height: 15 1/8" Depth: 6 1/2" Weight: 1.696 kg
