Museum of the History of Lithuania Medicine and Pharmacy

Contacts
Address: Rotušės a. 28, LT-44279, Kaunas.
Tel. (+370 ~ 37) 20 15 69.
E-mail: lmfmuziejus@med.kmu.lt
Director – Tauras Mekas.

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday 10–18.

Admission:
adults – 3 Lt;
pupils and students – 1,50 Lt.

Guided tour:
charge – 25 Lt.

Additional services
Operates Museum's homeopathic pharmacy.

Collection
The Museum's collection is made up of personal items of Lithuanian doctors and pharmacists, medical implements, documents, hospital and pharmacy establishments.

Expositions

Pharmacy department exposition
There one could enjoy the scenes of pre-history of medicine and pharmacy – watching exhibition stands arranged with great inventiveness and authenticity and showing a shaman curing a baby (some Lithuanian exiles witnessed such a scene in Siberian taiga only some 40 years ago) as well as a Lithuanian sorceress.

Officina, or the prescription room
Officinas have been used as reception rooms for customers and sales-rooms for those who had wanted to buy anything without a doctor's prescription. The furniture you can see in this officina was manufactured in the beginning of the 20th century and it was brought here from the drug store situated in Kauno Street, Vilnius. The shelves of this room are full of old drugs and other medical accessories. Some of them are really thrilling, e. g. tincture of Venus' hair recommended to women as an elixir of youth and beauty, balsam of men's strength or mysterious powder that was used in the Middle Ages for epilepsy treating and called "Caput Mortum" which actually means dried and grinded heads of dead people…

Coctoria
(Lat. Coquere – to produce, cook, dry) used to be one of the main premises in a chemist's shop because here pharmacists used to produce infusions and decoctions, to wash and dry dishes, to distil water. Very often a desk of the owner of a shop used to be arranged here. The equipment exhibited in this room was used at Lithuanian town and village drug-stories in the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.

Store-room
All larger drug stores used to be equipped by a locked storeroom for keeping reserves of various raw materials including poisonous and violently acting stuff.

Laboratory
Until 19th century bigger drug stores different necessary preparations were manufactured by the chemists' shops themselves. The Museum exposition exhibits vapour equipment for producing Galenicals; it has been used at Kaunas Red Cross chemist's shop laboratory. Other apparatus were used at Kaunas SANITAS Chemical-Pharmacy Laboratory in 1922 to 1950.

Cellar
You just can't miss a cellar typical to those possessed by all old drug-stores and used for keeping materials that needed lower temperature (oils, fat) and performing some technological operations, i. e. crushing and pulverising raw materials as well as for ointment and liniment production.
The upper floor of the Museum is meant for demonstrating exhibits, that describe pharmacy development in Lithuania before the Soviet occupation and show the samples of labelled medical preparations as well as survey the further evolution of pharmacy in the country.

Medicine history exposition
Exposition tells about Lithuanian medicine in 1918–1940, and the history of the Kaunas Medical Academy. Open to visitors are restored offices of the ophthalmologist V. Janulaitytė-Alseikienė (1883–1971) and the dentist S. Prapuolenytė-Čerkeliūnienė (1892–1979), and X-ray facilities of S. Laurinavičius (1892–1978).

Exhibitions
The Museum does not have special quarters for exhibits; exhibits are set up in exclusive circumstances - commemorating eminent doctors' and pharmacists' jubilees also anniversaries.

Cultural, educational activity
The Museum is Kaunas' Medical University's teaching base. Students attend lectures and practical lessons of Lithuanian Medical and pharmaceutical themes.

Departments
Pharmacy department;
Medicine department.

History of the Museum
In the middle of Kaunas Old Town, in the neighbourhood of the Town Hall, one should not miss the Museum of the History of Lithuania Medicine and Pharmacy.
The premises themselves, i. e. a restored building dating back to the 16th century are worth attention; it enables one to imagine a house which once has belonged to a rich merchant and to feel the romantic atmosphere full of magic secretness.
Thought the Museum exposition moved to this particular building in 1987, the history of the Pharmacy Department reaches the year of 1936 when the Lithuanian Pharmacy Museum was started to be created by joint efforts of the Lithuanian Pharmacists' Society and Lithuanian Pharmaceutists' Union.
Unfortunately, in 1940, when the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, the Museum was left without any care. Most of the exhibits were scattered and lost. In 1957, professor assistant of Kaunas Medical Institute A. Kaikaris became interested in the destiny of the former museum. A special licence issued by the former Lithuanian government in 1964 allowed the enthusiasts to start collecting historical material from all Lithuanian Medicine and Pharmacy at Kaunas Medical Academy.
Lithuania's Medicine and Pharmacy History Museum is most unique in the Baltic Region.
Museum's Establisher – Kaunas Medical University.

Photos by E. Butkevičius, R. Požerskis, A. Budvytis, R. Rudys