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More than 2.000 pieces from the old pharmacy of this hospital have been cataloged with the aim of opening a Pharmacy Museum in the future.
A large press adorns one of the corners of the pharmacy at the Nuestra Señora de Gracia (Provincial) hospital in Zaragoza. Once collected and macerated, the plants were crushed in these instruments to obtain the active ingredients of the medicines. A laborious and meticulous process that is very far from the genetic engineering through which many drugs are currently obtained.
This piece is part of the hundreds of 'jewels' that are still preserved in the old pharmacy of the Provincial hospital, for whose future survival many professionals in the sector and workers at the health center are fighting. They aspire for it to become a Pharmacy Museum to which the general public has access.
To achieve this and for the institutions to give the project the definitive push, after four years of intense work, just a few months ago 2.379 pieces used between 1869 and 1945 were finished being cataloged. "They have all been cleaned, they have been measured, photographed...", explains Carmen Palos Martín, a pharmacist who has voluntarily done this work to use in her thesis on this Aragonese heritage, with the collaboration of the head of the Pharmacy service of the Provincial hospital, Ignacio Andrés.
The Provincial Council of Zaragoza (DPZ), owner of the building (in 2000 it was given away for sanitary use) had only cataloged some jars and shelves, but now with this work it has been possible to 'dust it off' and, above all, to document it in writing. of the value of all the historical material that this space has. The shelves of the old Provincial pharmacy house, among other pieces, 463 old medications, 210 albarelos (85 of them with product) or 414 glass containers (jars, bottles, jars...). "Almost everything is exposed, there is only some glass, such as test tubes or serum bottles, in the attic," admits Andrés.
Among the historical material that is stored, numerous inventories also stand out (they have been reviewed from 1878 to 1946), in which the titular pharmacists took note by hand of the entire pharmacy heritage. "Thanks to them we can say that during all this time they have managed to preserve between 60% and 70% of the properties of the old pharmacy," says the current manager. Its last major restructuring dates back to 1881.
But the minutes also recount some events driven from those walls, such as the fact that the Provincial pharmacy was a pioneer in the treatment of cholera with the distribution of siphons in 1885. "Cholera is a continuous diarrhea. Now rehydrating solutions are used, then , they tried to recover this lack of salts through the siphons," explains the head of the Provincial Pharmacy. "The minutes even record the discussions between the pharmacists and the doctors of that time. They said how the latrines or the walls of the rooms where cholera patients were admitted had to be disinfected," adds Carmen Palos.
