Jonjon explores London… “Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum”

Glance: “Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum”

Just pretend you’re visiting a “normal” exhibition, where things are supposed to cater for your touristy needs. But as soon as you realize you’re in an institutional museum, you aren’t being attentive enough if you are to miss all the obscurity from an “outsider” perspective, i.e. from someone like you.

You’ll find it pretty obvious as you walk along the corridors with these display cabinets, that there would be TV screens showcasing portraits of their presidents, one by one. Like a screensaver not on a rescue mission. Sooner or later you’ll also realize for every time you pass another corner, there’s yet another screen showing the exact same thing.

It’s of course a fairly common sight – even Royal Institution / Faraday Museum has portraits of ever-lesser-known figures as you reach the top floors. And if you’d rather get too much information on its clients (patients) rather than those who help build it, try Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability.

Internal celebrations. Cryptic wordplays. Paid arcane knowledge. Let’s review the golden triangle that requires you to do your own deciphering and to filter out the interesting and the likable.

Institutional museums are thus like voluntary attractions in a way but with much, much more resources.

See yourself: “Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum”

1. Pots and mortars at the main entrance – simple and to the point. After that: a copy of Pharmacopoeia Londinenlis (2nd ed.), a list of approved medicine published 1618.

2. You’re then left to reconstruct the historic timeline to decide which cabinet to go next. Start right across with “Early Pharmacy”.

3. Its discussion on the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London suggests it being an early phase of dispensing. But if you’re to join the next Open House, you can actually visit its head offices in the City.

4. The rest of the cabinets go through each of the imperial periods. Hilarious drug posters that will surely be banned today. Drug jars. Proprietary medicines. Ingredients. End products.

(The impressive library is right next door for your admiration.)

Time is asset: save it for better with 25-min museum tours. Or find yourself in my novel, check out the photo of the day and finish it off with a secret prize.

Tags - in_depth_tourism; museum; London_writer; London_travel; indie_writer; independent_blogger