THE LABORATORY

The laboratory is one of the three rooms that make up an apothecary’s. With its plain and pragmatic layout, it is in stark contrast to the dispensary. This is where the apothecary would get down to work making remedies – grinding, sieving, dissolving, distilling and decanting the ingredients for example. This would all change considerably thanks to innovations in pharmaceutical chemistry. Large quantities of treatments and remedies could be made using glass equipment. A nursing nun would usually be trained by the town’s apothecary and would look after the dispensary and the laboratory.

In Nuits-Saint-Georges, the laboratory and the shop are in the same room. The latter was used to store products such as plants, fruits and oilseeds. Fitted out in oak or walnut, the shop is dark. This offers one advantage in that it protects foodstuffs from heat, cold and even humidity. The laboratory still has an apothecary’s cabinet bearing the names of the medicinal plants stored there, as well as a fireplace in Burgundy stone.

This room played a key role in preparing and storing medicines, as well as in studying the chemical and alchemical properties of natural substances. The work of apothecaries was not only pharmaceutical, but also scientific, even mystical, especially during the transition between medieval medicine and modern science.