It doesn’t take long to visit the apothecary of the hospital, founded in the 12th century by Henry Ist, the 9th Count of Champagne. Here in an 18th-century stone building, you’ll find the room where the apothecaries made and stored their remedies.
319 painted wooden boxes line the top part of the walls, reached by a majestic wooden library stepladder that can be pushed around the room. Each box is illustrated, depicting the contents of the box, which makes a vast collection of images, all based on one 17th-century book. There are collections of pottery jars, bottles amd ‘Albarello’, a kind of majolaica made in Lyon and the south of France in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Most of our modern medicines are based on plants and the knowledge the apothecaries accumulated over the centuries. So you might try some of the remedies advocated here. For indigestion mix together 4 ounces of ginger, 2 ounces of nutmeg, one ounce of cinnamon and one ounce of cloves and take one spoonful of the mixture after the meal. If you want to stop dreaming at night, attach some aniseed to your pillow where you can breathe in the scent. But the treatment for toothache might be more difficult to do: add a grain of opium to the yolk of an egg…
Practical Information
Quai des Comtes de ChampagneTel.: 00 33 (0)3 25 80 98 97
Open: May 2 to September 30 Wednesday 2pm-7pm, Thursday and Friday 10am-1pm, 2pm-7pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am-1pm, 2pm-7pm. October 1 to April 30 Friday to Sunday 10am-noon, 2pm-5pm
Closed January 1, May 1, November 11 and December 25
Admission 2 euros. Free the first Sunday of the month and under 18 years old
