Carla Serarcangeli
Sapienza History of Medicine Unit - University of Rome, I
Keywords:
Apothecary Conti , Pharmacist Corsi, Roman pharmacy disappearance
Abstract
Starting from archive documents, the present article aims to retrace the history of a once well-known pharmacy based in S. Eustachio square, in Rome, and then commonly denominated Corsi’s. Thanks to the information gathered in Roman archives, it is possible to throw light on the events related to this apothecary, whose activity, as found out, lasted since the XVIII until the first decades of the XX century, under the property of two families, first the Conti and then the Corsi. Notwithstanding its long establishment, this pharmacy seems to have suddenly vanished from the official documents registered within the archives. Nevertheless the importance of its history is actually related to some of the instruments, being part of its original inventory, and nowadays held in the collection of the Museum of History of Medicine in Rome. These specimens particularly jars and boxes, are valuable in order to describe how in the past professionals used to take care of most of the diseases.
