Museum of Pharmacy in Łódź
The concept for the creation of such a museum first appeared in November 1912, during a meeting of the Warsaw Pharmaceutical Society (Warszawskie Towarzystwo Farmaceutyczne). It was then that the resolution to collect museum items and to establish a pharmaceutical museum was adopted. A hundred years later, PZF Cefarm Łódź initiated efforts to create another museum, this time in Łódź. Not by chance, it was decided that the museum would be housed in a historic building which also, since 1840, houses the oldest pharmacy in Łódź. In 2006, the first designing and refurbishing works were launched and museum items were started to be collected. Construction of the Museum was financed by Polska Grupa Farmaceutyczna.“In 2004, our company, whose financial standing was at that time very bad, joined the PGF Group,”says Aleksy Banasiak, the President of PZF Cefarm.“Even today, we are still experiencing some difficulties and cannot afford such investments. That is why we turned to PGF for assistance in financing our project.”
“We have had ties with the city of Łódź since our inception. I cannot possibly imagine a different location for the museum. We have undertaken financial and organisational efforts to save a several-hundred-year old tradition of Polish pharmacy from oblivion. It may not be the first museum of pharmacy in Poland, but it is the first one in Łódź,”concludes Jacek Szwajcowski, the President of PGF.“The company owes its creation to pharmacists, who for many generations have been the primary source of information about medicinal products. We want to remember it, and that is why we take care of historical pharmacies throughout Poland. However, the Museum of Pharmacy in Łódź will be special, as its purpose is to facilitate the understanding of the role that pharmacists play in society.”
The museum’s collection has been gathered for two years. The Museum in Łódź cooperates on a permanent basis with the Museum of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University, from which it borrowed one of the historical exhibitions.
