The museum dedicated to pharmacy was founded in Oslo in 1963, and 11 years later it opened to the general public.
It was housed in the «General's Residence» – an old private house built in Christiania in 1714 and moved to the Bygdoy peninsula in 1918. There the historic building came under the jurisdiction of the Museum of Norwegian People. The exterior elements of the building were left unchanged, while the interior was remodeled based on the setting of the old Apoteket Hjorten pharmacy, located in the Gronland district.
Upon stepping inside, you will find yourself in a real city pharmacy of the 1860s. Charming lacquered cabinets are lined with hundreds of bottles containing unknown medicines; there is also a counter for customers and many carefully detailed objects related to 19th-century pharmacy.
Wikimedia, Nina-no
Since 1982, a small botanical garden has been located next to the Norwegian Museum of Pharmacy, where you can see 160 species of medicinal plants. The garden's collection was assembled with historical sources, legends, and recipes in mind, which were used to create tinctures, ointments, drops, and mixtures.
In those distant times, the preparation of healing remedies was an almost magical art, an alchemy that only the initiated could understand. That is probably why it is so interesting today to see the materials and tools once used to make medicines.
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