From private collections to public exhibition: the first steps of Hispanic pharmacy museums (1923-1951)

The emergence of pharmacy museums in early 20th-century Spain was due to three unique factors. First, a collecting zeal linked to the legitimization of professional pharmaceutical activity, at a time when the presence of industrially manufactured medicines on the market undermined the fiat secundum artem that, until then, had been the hallmark of pharmaceutical work. This was compounded by the accession, in 1915, of Rafael Folch Andreu (1881-1960) to the Chair of History of Pharmacy and Comparative Study of Current Pharmacopoeias established at the Central University for doctoral studies, which meant the professionalization of those studying the History of Pharmacy and their participation in international meetings and conferences. The Hispanic participation in the congresses organized by the International Society for the History of Pharmacy, founded in 1926, is particularly linked to the first congress held in 1929 in Berlin, which included a simultaneous exhibition entitled Kunst- und Kulturgeschichtliches aus alten Apotheken at the Schlossmuseum.