The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's museum is included in a new guide to London sites that hold historic collections or archives from the Arab world. The 18-page leaflet, entitled "Arab heritage in London", lists 30 museums, galleries and institutions across the capital.
The guide's entry on the Society's museum includes a photograph of a 15th century bronze mortar made in Egypt for Kait Bey, Sultan of Islam, who reigned between 1468 and 1495. The guide goes on to explain that, although the museum does not have many artefacts from the Arab world, its exhibitions include many references to the influence of Arab scholarship on western European medicine in the post-medieval period.
The leaflet also reproduces an early image of the Society's coat of arms to draw attention to the choice of Avicenna (Abu 'Ali Al Husain Ibn Sina) as one of the supporters of the shield. It says that the Society's founders chose Ibn Sina because of his contribution to medical scholarship, especially his book ‘Canon of medicine', which influenced medieval thinking in Renaissance Europe.
The guide has been prepared by the Arab Community Association in Brent, with support from Millennium Festival Awards for All. It has been produced principally for the benefit of London's Arab communities. London has a resident Arab population of more than 300,000, originating from 21 Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa.
Copies of the leaflet are available from the Arab Community Association in Brent, 116 Salmon Street, Kingsbury, London NW9 8NL (tel 020 8205 2190).
The Society's museum is based in its Lambeth headquarters and is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm (non-pharmacists by appointment only).