They occupied some of the most honorable positions in the royal family. But these privileges were not at all easy for them.
The slightest mistake could lead to the collapse of their career, the final point of which would not be a reprimand or dismissal, but death. After all, the lives of the first persons of the state were at stake. Court pharmacists - what do we know about them?
The activities of a doctor and a pharmacist began to be distinguished much later. In the meantime, they were all called simply doctors, although many of the functions they performed were purely pharmaceutical.
Angel of the Czech King
In 1360, the pharmacist Angelo from Florence was awarded the favor of the King of Bohemia Karel I and obeyed only his court. In addition, his house and garden with all the adjacent buildings were exempted from all taxes.
Angelo's Garden was the first botanical garden in all of Central Europe. The court “apothecary” at the Fruit Market had his own pharmacy, which can be called the very first in the Old Town and in Prague in general. In addition to medicines, the pharmacy sold various things, even delicacies, so the pharmacists also did the work of confectioners and bakers.
The regular customers of the pharmacy were the Prague nobility and high clergy, because it was considered good form to receive medicinal preparations here.
Promotional video:
For centuries, the Angelo Pharmacy, which still exists today, had the best reputation and is now among the most advanced. Pharmacies preserve the memory of the first Prague pharmacist by placing an image of an angel on their signs and are called “At the Angel”, “At the Guardian Angel”, etc., because Angelo is translated as “angel”.
Queen's alchemist
Michel Nostradamus, more famous for his numerous prophecies than for his achievements in medicine and pharmacy, lived and worked at the court of Catherine de Medici, where he came precisely because of his predictions.
From 1564 he received the official status of royal physician and astrologer. He was not the only pharmacist at the court, but probably very few people turned to his other colleague, Rene from Milan, for healing, for the simple reason that he became famous as a skilled poisoner.
As for Nostradamus, he is known for inventing the famous "pink pills". Mixed on the basis of rose petals and rich in vitamin C, they were at that time the most effective remedy for the plague, which made it possible in 1546 in Provence to put 30-40% of terminally ill townspeople on their feet.
Peru of Nostradamus owns a number of books, among which it is worth noting "The universal cure for the plague" (1561) and "A useful brochure on many excellent recipes" (1572).
However, the inscription on his tombstone again emphasizes precisely his powers of a soothsayer: "Here lie the bones of Michel Nostradamus, one of all mortals, considered worthy to report and write with his almost divine pen about the influence of the stars on future events that are to take place on the globe." …
French James arrived in Russia at the court of Ivan the Terrible in 1581 as part of an English delegation together with Robert Jacob, a physician of the British Queen Elizabeth. He was not the first foreign specialist at the Russian court. Before him, the pharmacist Matthias (Matyushka the pharmacist) and the Dutchman Arent Klassen, who had served for forty years in the grand-ducal pharmacy, already worked in the pharmacy field.
A pharmacy was created in the Kremlin chambers, the services of which were used by the royal family and a narrow circle of courtiers. The luxury of the interiors of the first tsarist pharmacy was harmoniously combined with silver display cases and pharmaceutical accessories made of gold and silver, kept in perfect order. Foreigners, who had never met anything like it before, poured out their enthusiasm in letters, which, centuries later, served as a source of valuable information about the origins of the pharmacy business in Russia.
French James replenished the pharmacy stocks with medicines brought from England. These were mainly plant-based products: fruits, flowers, herbs, roots and bark, as well as gums, resins and essential oils. The Englishman's working day was, apparently, irregular, since it was completely subordinated to the needs of the royal family. In addition, in an atmosphere of general mistrust and suspicion, a very strict system of intra-pharmacy control was developed. The pharmacist prepared his medicines only in the presence of a special clerk, and the finished product was tried in turn, first by the courtiers and the manufacturer himself, and only then by the king, which in principle excluded the possibility of error.
Apparently, this system worked smoothly, and the career of a pharmacist from distant England was successful, since none of the documents of that time mentions the successors of French.
Potatoes for Louis
Antoine-Auguste Parmentier - French pharmacist and agronomist of the Enlightenment, inspector general of health under Napoleon, who dealt with the sanitary conditions of the French army and conducted the first ever smallpox vaccination campaign in 1805, invented the technology of obtaining sugar from sugar beets, founded a bakery school and made a contribution to the study of methods of freezing and preserving food, remained in the memory of posterity as an active promoter of potato cultivation in Europe. Several dishes are even named in his honor, the main ingredient of which is potatoes.
It was thanks to Parmentier's efforts that the Paris Faculty of Medicine declared potatoes edible in 1772.
The French did not immediately accept the mysterious tubers. And they surrendered only when Parmentier attracted the royal couple to his side. Louis XVI liked various dishes made from potatoes, and the queen, like a true woman, liked the flowers of this plant. Having decorated her dress with them, she made an unheard of advertisement for Parmentier's brainchild. After that, potatoes immediately became fashionable, but only as a decoration for a costume. Therefore, the resourceful scientist had to go for a trick.
At the request of the pharmacist, the king's soldiers began to guard the potato plantation. But only during the day, to give the intrigued French an opportunity to steal mysterious tubers under cover of night. Which they did, and with great zeal. After all, as you know, there is nothing sweeter than the forbidden fruit.
