Allende Museum & the Apothecaries of Old

Our passion for plants and healing extends to the history and development of plants into “medicines”. One of our dreams has been to have a little museum where people could visit and see the old botanical medicines the way they were. We had, over time, acquired much of the stock from an old pharmacy (or “botica” as they used to be called) here in San Miguel. Financing and creating “our own” museum was daunting.

In 2005, we placed the exhibit on long-term loan to the Museo Allende, located on the corner of Umaran & Cuna de Allende (across the street from the Parroquia on the main square).

In cooperation with the Museo Allende and the other donors to the exhibit, one can now visit a re-creation of a pharmacy as it was here in San Miguel, and browse through several notebooks we have put together on the history of the “Boticas” in this region as well as a complete catalogue of the 240 bottles & potions we have donated to the exhibit: what they contained, where it came from, an dhow it was used according to the Pharmacopeas of the turn of the century and pre-1950s, when most of the items sold in pharmacies were still of plant origin. (This exhibit is in Spanish).

Special thanks to our daughter, India Bastien, who helped me immensely in the cataloging and research for the exhibit.

Here are a few sample pages.

* For you true history of medicine & apothecary buffs, also visit: http://www.nlm.nih.gov. The U.S. National Library of Medicine/National Institute of Health History of Medicine website. It is nirvana for History of Medicine buffs. Enjoy.