Musée des Plantes Médicinales et de la Pharmacie / Museum van Geneeskrachtige Planten en Pharmacie, l'Université Libre de Bruxelles
Situated in the faculty building of Pharmacy at the Vrije Universiteit of Brussels is Musée des Plantes Médicinales et de la Pharmacie, a museum devoted to the medical histories of plants. This museum is not so much a designated room or a building, but rather a long corridor on the ground floor of the faculty, a passage aligned with glass-vitrines between the lecture auditorium and student laboratories. The curator of the museum, himself retired faculty professor, Maurice Vanhaelen, very kindly elaborated on some of the key (urban) plants which have been used in historical and contemporary pharmaceutical practice. We pondered over willow bark and meadowsweet root and their molecular compounds (salicylic acid and salicin) in the making of aspirin, and the noble resilience of the ginkgo tree to urban pollutants. Goethe, professor Vanhaelen avidly explained, was also an admirer of the ginkgo. He had a tree in his backyard which inspired him to write Ginkgo biloba.
The vitrines take you through the discovery, development and historical and contemporary usages of all kinds of drugs extracted from plants. There are many relics from the 19th century such as beautiful silk stitched plant models, advertising prints of life-prolonging elixirs and fortifying wine ‘vin bravais’ and a suprising variety old fashioned suppositoires. Curious artefacts aside, there’s quite a bit of text (in French) to pour over, though there is the possibility of a fully guided tour with Professor Vanhaelen (higly recommended, but best to book in advance) or a photocopy booklet — in Dutch of English — available for 4€ on request.
Musée des Plantes Médicinales et de la Pharmacie
Museum van Geneeskrachtige Planten en Pharmacie
Museum of Medicinal Plants and Pharmacy
ULB CP205/04
Campus de la Plaine
Boulevard du Triomphe
1050 Bruxelles