One of Krakow's many museums had caught my eye, and became my afternoon. The Museum of Pharmacy in the Old Town was actually a branch of the Jagellonian University's School of Pharmacy and so was designed in a very academic way. It had an enormous repository of over 22,000 pharmaceutical relics from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
First I learned about the decoration of pharmacies. To quote Shakespeare:
"I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, which late I note
In tatter'd eeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
Accordingly:
The basement also held some curiosities, both the poison section as well as the biggest bellows I've ever seen, which was over 2m in length.
There was also the gorgeous old apothecary setups, replete with a bottle for every possible tincture or solution. They had specially built cabinets and specially labeled jars just for this purpose.
Then, of course, were the normal and the bizarre stuffs they had that they used as medicine.
This table has a full jar of leeches (the translation of hirudines) out on the table.
Just your basic snakes, scorpions, and pickled lizards exhibit.
I'm not sure what to make of this, but it appears to be a unicorn horn.
Really, truly, that is mummy inside.
A jar of human fat (Axungia Hominis), just waiting for the right time.
Finally, I made it to the attic, where a whole set of medicinal herbs were hung to dry and others were captured in jars.
Truly, a fascinating and bizarre world to step into, if only for an afternoon.
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