Visit to the German Pharmacy Museum, Heidelberg
Anytime is a good time to learn more about natural toxins! We took advantage of our trip to Frankfurt to get to visit of the most important Pharmacy Museums in Europe, placed in Heidelberg (Germany).
Written by Inés Rodríguez Leal (ESR1)
On Saturday November 25th, Carina (ESR9) and me (ESR1) visited the medieval city of Heidelberg, on our way to our meeting in Frankfurt. We enjoyed very much the Pharmacy Museum, which holds an interesting collection of all kinds of remedies that have been used from antiquity to our days.
Among the myriad of medicinal plants, we found this box with little glass vials containing some of the natural toxins we are going to study in this project, in this case, alkaloids. For example the glycoalkaloid solanine (no. 34, solanin in German) is used as a diuretic and in eye diseases. For further information, you can check out the article published in this website by Matt MacLeod.
In addition to this fruitful visit to the museum, we also enjoyed a walk around the castle and its surroundings, from where one can get an amazing view of this beautiful city.
Photos by Carina Schönsee