Interior of the entrance room of the Red Crayfish Pharmacy Red Crayfish Pharmacy ( sk, Lekáreň U červeného raka) is a

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

building and former

pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...

from the 16th century in the

Old Town In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Although the city is usually larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations. There are ma ...

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

. Since 1953 it houses the Museum of Pharmacy of the

Bratislava City Museum The Bratislava City Museum ( sk, Múzeum mesta Bratislavy, abbr. MMB) is a museum in Bratislava, Slovakia, established in 1868. Its headquarters are located in the Old Town, near the Main Square at the Old Town Hall. The museum is owned by one o ...

. Today, the exhibition features three of the original five rooms of the former pharmacy complete with historical furniture, pharmacy equipment and Baroque – Classicist paintings and wall decorations. The museum contains an original edition of works by

Paracelsus Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. He w ...

from 1574.

History of the pharmacy

The original pharmacy “Red Crayfish” appears in records as early as the mid-16th century. In 1773 the pharmacy is listed as one of five operating in Bratislava.

History of the building

Michalská Street No. 26 is a

burgher's house built within the

barbican A barbican (from fro, barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer fortifications, defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe ...

of the

Michael's Gate In Bratislava, Slovakia, Michael's Gate ( sk, Michalská brána, german: Michaelertor, hu, Mihály kapu) is the only city gate that has been preserved of the medieval fortifications and ranks among the oldest town buildings. Built about the yea ...

adjacent to the Bratislava Water Moat. In the mid-18th century the front façade of the house was re-constructed in the

Classicist style Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...

and extended with a stone entrance in the

Rococo style Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

. The front façade is adorned with an original cast-iron pharmacy sign with forged canthus ornamentation and a crayfish from the end of the 19th century, manufactured by the known Bratislava blacksmith company ''Márton''. The pharmacy and the apartment above the pharmacy were owned by the Feldesh family, a Jewish family that was deported by the Nazis during Holocaust to the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. The descendants of the family live today in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Today

The current exhibition displays the history of pharmacy in Bratislava in the first three rooms. The entrance room is furnished with the original Red Crayfish Pharmacy fittings. The furniture set constructed from stained beech in the Empire style standing along three walls of the room is supplemented with a tare balance and a stand for a hand-balance. This equipment is supplemented with faience, stoneware, wooden, china and glass containers for storing medicines dating from a period extending from the end of the 18th century up to the 1950s. The room contains paintings in the Baroque – Classicist style from the end of the 18th century with a theme of healing, with a

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

and three figurative compositions on the

vaulted ceiling In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...

. The pharmaceutical collection contains 8,500 items and 2,880 volumes of ancient pharmaceutical literature and it one of the largest of its kind in

. It contains original items of pharmaceutical equipment, the oldest originating from the 16th century. The Baroque and Classicist furniture and most of the faience, stoneware, glass, wooden and tin vessels for preserving medicines were made in Slovakia. The oldest dispensing containers, simple tools for the preparation of medicines, laboratory ware and metallic sign-boards were also manufactured within the territory of Slovakia, up to the time of the unification of pharmacies in the second half of the 19th century. The literature from the 16th century includes an original edition of works by

from 1574. The first quadri-lingual tariff of medicines entitled “Taxa pharmaceutica posoniensis”, published in 1745 in Bratislava, which was valid throughout the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

is prized locally as an example of the earliest known Slovak pharmaceutical terminology.

References

External links

Salomon Kleiner's album of watercolour interiors of the Red Crayfish Pharmacy
{{coord, 48, 08, 43, N, 17, 06, 24, E, region:SK_type:city_source:kolossus-plwiki, display=title Buildings and structures in Bratislava Pharmacies of Slovakia

History of the pharmacy

History of the building

Today

See also

References

External links