Museum highlights role of women in medicine
The Florence Nightingale museum’s exhibition includes a reconstruction
of a Crimean War dispensary, with bottles loaned by the Society’s
museum |
The museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has been helping to highlight women’s involvement in the world of medicine in history through its support for three separate projects.
Museum staff have assisted with the research and lent objects to the
Florence Nightingale Museum for its exhibition “Calamity unparalleled:
order out of chaos”. The exhibition marks the 150th anniversary
of the Crimean War, focusing specifically on the “Lady of the lamp” and
her band of nurses.
The exhibition runs until the end of April 2005. The museum (tel 020
7620 0374; website www.florence-nightingale.co.uk) is at St Thomas’ Hospital,
London SE1.
The museum has also provided research and illustrations for a book on
Agatha Christie, whose detective novels often made use of the knowledge
of poisons she gained during wartime work in hospital pharmacies — a
red Cross hospital in Torquay during the 1914–18 war and University
College London during the 1939–45 war.
The new book, ‘Agatha Christie: a reader’s companion’ by
Vanessa Wagstaff and Stephen Poole, was published in October by Aurum
Press. It includes images of a number of items from the museum’s
collections, including poisons linked to the plots of novels and interiors
of premises from the period when Mrs Christie worked in pharmacy.
The third project assisted by the museum was a small temporary exhibition
about women and medicine at Waterloo Library, London, for which the museum
lent a number of objects.
Briony Hudson, keeper of the museum collections, said: “We are
always pleased to contribute to exhibition and publication projects that
take the Society’s collections out to the public. The female theme
is particularly interesting and one we will be building on during 2005
when we will celebrate the centenary of the National Association of Women
Pharmacists.”
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal