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The London Clinic

What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? Modern pharmaceutical signs have a long history going back to the Greek gods. 

While alchemists used secret symbols to disguise their chemical formulations, pharmacists used the tools of their trade – medical ingredients, pestle and mortar, and carboys (pharmaceutical vessels) – to advertise on shop signs and in trade publications. And though their origins may be forgotten, many of the visual markers are still used in drug packaging, in pharmacies and on medical buildings. 

A design for a pharmacy label featuring traditional pharmaceutical paraphernalia.

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Design for a pharmacy label

Asclepius’s staff features on the London monument to Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake (1865–1925), one of the first British women to enter the field of medicine in 1895. 

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Monument with Asclepius's staff

Slithering their way through the iconography of pharmaceutical history, snakes appear, often wrapped around a staff, wherever you find apothecaries. Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, carried a rod with a single snake, which became a medical symbol from the fifth century BCE. 

The messenger of the gods, Hermes (the Roman god Mercury), acquired an extra snake on his staff, known as a caduceus. It’s perhaps not a coincidence, then, that the element mercury was a major chemical agent in the history of medicine and alchemy. For example, the evaporated vapour of mercury combined with snake venom was injected through the centre of the scalp as an antidote to snake bite and epilepsy. Both Hermes, the god of commerce, and Mercury, the god of trade, are a good fit for retail pharmacy. 

The symmetrical proportions of the caduceus lend themselves to design. It was first used as a printer’s mark (colophon) by a 15th-century book publisher, and its association with medicine was revived in the early 19th century when a medical publisher adopted it. In France, snakes might also be found entwined around palm trees on 19th-century pharmaceutical labels. Perhaps this is a reminder of the exotic origins of many drugs? 

Possibly a French pharmaceutical label with a snake wrapped around a palm tree, and what may be a crocodile underneath.

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Pharmacy label

The Bowl of Hygeia is another mythological symbol associated with medicine. As the daughter and assistant of Asclepius, Hygeia tended to her father’s temples with a bowl of medicinal potion from which the serpent of wisdom drank, according to ancient Greek mythology. 

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Snakes in medicine and pharmacy

Another animal symbol commonly seen in pharmaceutical branding is the unicorn. It was first mentioned by the ancient Greeks as a symbol of purity and grace, whose spiralling horn had the power to heal, especially as an antidote to poisons. Often narwhal horns would wash up on beaches and be mistaken for the mystical unicorn’s horn and, like other animal horns and bones, be ground up for medical use. Along with the lion, the unicorn is the symbol of the British monarchy, and it was King James I who granted the Society of Apothecaries their charter in 1617 and their coat of arms with the two unicorns. 

The coat of arms of the Society of Apothecaries above Apothecaries Hall in London. Image credit: Ben Gilbert, 2017.

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Coat of arms above Apothecaries Hall, London

The unicorn was also the logo for Burroughs Wellcome & Co. and then the Wellcome Foundation from 1908 to 1995. It’s likely that Henry Wellcome was influenced in his choice of trademark by the myth of the unicorn’s horn. According to historians Roy Church and E M Tansey, Wellcome gave clear instructions to the designers that he wanted “delicacy, and refinement, and grace with virility and verve” in his unicorn. 

The unicorn trademark for Burroughs Wellcome and the Wellcome Foundation. The original version is on the left; it was later given a modern makeover.

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Wellcome Foundation unicorn logos

A 17th-century pill tile, used for preparing pills. The coat of arms  suggests that the original owner was a member of the Society of Apothecaries. The coat of arms features the god of healing, Apollo, killing a wyvern, with a unicorn on either side and a rhinoceros above the central scene.

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Pill tile, England, 1617-1700

The crocodile or alligator was associated with alchemy, and then with apothecary and chemist shops, though the reason for this association is unclear. It may simply have been a way of showing that the chemist had access to the rarest and most exotic ingredients, or, as nature writer Hannah Velten suggests, it may have been the reptiles’ similarity to another mythical creature, the wyvern, a sort of dragon. In the coat of arms of the Society of Apothecaries, the god Apollo stands over a two-legged wyvern, which represents disease.

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare describes an apothecary in which hangs “An alligator stuff’d, and other skins of ill-shaped fishes”.

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The apothecary in his shop

Nowadays pharmacies display the green cross outside their shops. The green cross was first introduced as a pharmaceutical sign in continental Europe in the early 20th century as a replacement for the red cross, which was adopted by the International Red Cross in 1863. The green cross was not used in Britain until 1984, when the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain chose it as the standard symbol for pharmacy. The society stipulated that it should be produced in a specified shade of green, or in black and white, and that the word ‘pharmacy’ or ‘pharmacist’ should appear with it.

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Examples of pharmacy signs around London

Another graphic symbol closely related to pharmacy is Rx. It derives from the Latin verb recipere, meaning ‘to take back’ or ‘to receive’, and first appeared on doctors’ notes to chemists. In America, pharmaceutical products still bear the symbol to mark the authority of prescriptions. Modern pharmaceutical symbols may be much more mundane than their predecessors, but they are still essential as marks of authority and reliability.

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What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.

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Julia Nurse

Author

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Follow the history of pharmacy through the perspective of drawings and design.

Plant portraits

The poor child’s nurse

Theriac: An ancient brand?

The chymist’s trade card

Graphic battles in pharmacy

The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols

Drawings and designs are an essential part of the history of pharmacy. Whether it's imparting knowledge in medieval herbals, stamping their authority on regulations and standards, or promoting their wares in adverts and signs, apothecaries and pharmacists have always understood the value of graphic imagery.

Pharmagraphics

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Grant’s Oddities, no. 8

James Morison's campaign against the medical establishment inspired a wave of caricatures mocking his quack medicine.

In the 1830s, the medical establishment declared war on quack remedies. Public enemy number one was James Morison and his Hygeian Vegetable Universal Medicine. 

Morison promoted an overarching medical theory in which all diseases originated from impurities in the blood. Morison’s pills, advertised by a team of agents known as Hygeists, would supposedly clarify the blood and therefore cure all diseases. His headquarters, the British College of Health, at 33 Euston Road, London, artfully presented Morison as the head of a learned institution rather than the manufacturer of dubious cures.  

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Mr Morison the Hygeist

In turn, Morison attacked the medical establishment for its reliance on chemicals and mercury in contrast to his purely vegetable remedies. He commissioned at least 11 promotional Hygeian illustrations, with titles such as ‘Downfall of the Doctors’ and ‘Morality of Modern Medicine-Mongers’. Officially priced at 3 pence (6 pence for coloured versions), they were probably handed out for free. 

‘Fallacy of the Organic Theory of Doctors’ – part of Morison’s campaign against the medical establishment – features the British College of Health on the right.

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Fallacy of the Organic Theory of Doctors

Advertising through as many channels as possible, he started in 1825 with seven pamphlets, moving on to books, journals, brochures, almanacs, broadsides and posters. In 1834, the ‘London Medical Gazette’ claimed: “We can scarcely go into any street in London in which we do not see ‘Morison’s Universal Pills for the cure of every disease’ staring at us in large letters in the windows of one or more shops.”  

‘Morality of Modern Medicine-Mongers’ – another of Morison’s anti-doctor publications.

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Morality of Modern Medicine Mongers

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A set of eight prints, probably issued by James Morison

But Morison’s pills could be just as dangerous as the arsenic, strychnine and mercury found in conventional cures. Although their formulation remained secret until the early 20th century, the pills were laxatives and could be fatal if taken in the large quantities often recommended. In 1836, John MacKenzie, aged 32, was administered 1,000 pills over 20 days by one of Morison’s agents, and died. In 1837, 12 deaths caused by excessive doses of Morison’s pills were investigated in York. One witness testified to taking 20,000 pills over a two-year period. Cases against Morison continued until 1839, but he escaped punishment as his agents bore the brunt of the accusations.  

Thomas Wakley, editor of the medical journal ‘The Lancet’, was a leading opponent of Morison, attacking him as “the man-slaughterer”, the most visible representative of secret remedies and quackery. The vegetable pills also lent themselves to visual ridicule, being derided in around 25 caricatures produced from the 1830s. Noted caricaturist George Cruikshank was one of the artists to set Morison in his sights. 

‘The Fox and the Goose’ by George Cruikshank.

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The Fox and Goose

Morison died in 1840 and his sons took over his very successful business. They expanded the product range, and sales remained high into the 1860s. Using data from medical tax stamps, pharmacy historian William Helfand has calculated that over a billion of Morison’s pills were sold between 1825 and 1849. They continued to be sold in Britain until the 1920s.

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Caricatures of Morison’s advertising

The emerging pharmaceutical profession battled to establish a respectable name for pharmacy against a backdrop of criticism about quack medicines. Pharmacists were satirised through popular prints, and their professionalism, ethics and credentials were questioned. A Parliamentary Select Committee in 1844 described the druggist’s shop as “vying with the gin palace in its tempting decorations”.  

A draft diploma produced by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

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Draft Diploma

As a newcomer to the medical establishment in 1841, the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain wanted to stress its strong foundations and the competence and reliability of its members. Along with a stringent scheme for education and examinations, its 1841 diploma design was used widely to convey authority, appearing on exam certificates, ‘The Pharmaceutical Journal’ and as the basis of its coat of arms, granted in 1844. 

The coat of arms was adapted into a logo in the 1980s.

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Coat of Arms

The society may have been new, but the coat of arms went to every effort to stress the ancient roots of the profession. The central shield is supported by two medical giants: Avicenna is shown using the Staff of Asclepius to point at a wreath of medicinal plants, while Galen holds a hand balance. The central medallion and figures stand on a pedestal showing an alchemist in a laboratory flanked by chemical and pharmaceutical equipment. A pestle and mortar sit atop the whole design. The traditional figures, medicinal plants such as foxglove, poppy and senna, and an alchemist at work reflect pharmacy’s long history.  

The logo of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

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Logo

In spite of more recent proposals to move away from this 1840s design, the society today still maintains a simplified version of the original coat of arms as its logo, featuring the dove of peace, aloe to represent plant-based medicine, a snake-entwined staff, and distillation apparatus, surmounted by a pestle and mortar, with a balance at the centre. Its historical foundations remain important even in the scientific age. 

With the internet, the battle against quackery has moved to the virtual arena. British and European online pharmacies display an official logo to demonstrate their legitimacy, as design continues to play a part in establishing authority and reliability.

Grants Oddities ; no. 8

James Morison’s campaign against the medical establishment inspired a wave of caricatures mocking his quack medicine.

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Richard Siddall, Chymist

An 18th-century trade card reveals a lot more than its owner might have intended.

Imagine entering the shop of chymist (the word ‘chemist’ was not used until 1790) Richard Siddall as it appears on his trade card from around 1750. If the representation is at all accurate, it must have been an enticing experience, with its stuffed specimens hanging from the ceiling, mysterious potions cooking in a furnace and shelves lined with jars of exotic substances. Regardless of the authenticity of the depiction, unravelling its rich imagery reveals a lot about the origins of pharmacy.

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Thanks to the burgeoning 18th-century print industry, traders like Siddall no longer had to rely on their street signs to attract customers. Small, portable graphic prints promoted their wares well beyond the high street. There are many examples of Siddall’s card in historic collections today, proof that it was widely distributed – and kept! Siddall passed his business and brand over to a Daniel Swann who, seeing no reason to change a good thing, simply replaced Siddall’s name with his own and continued using the same design for another 20 years.

Looking at the card more closely, rococo decorative flourishes dominate. This fashionable graphic style, characteristic of the 18th century, was first introduced by the French type founder Pierre-Simon Fournier (1712–1768). He pioneered not just the ‘type family’, a series of typefaces of the same design but with differing stroke weights, but also a wide range of decorative ornaments and florid fonts. The architectural features and swathes of the fringed curtain on the card, as well as the varying fonts, were all inspired by Fournier’s designs.

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Rococo graphics

Robert Clee, who engraved Siddall’s card, also produced cards for neighbouring silversmiths and cut-glass manufacturers in London. Clee himself was well connected. He worked for Charles-Nicolas Cochin, an influential French engraver and designer to Madame de Pompadour. Clee’s design appears to have originated from Cochin’s print version of a fashionable painting entitled 'La Pharmacie'. This work was one of a series of three by Jacques de Lajoue (1687–1761) on the hot science topics of the day, the others being 'L’optique' and 'L’astronomie'.

The 'chymist' on his throne in Siddall's trade card.

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In Clee’s version, the youthful 'chymist' takes centre stage on an architectural throne edged with pharmaceutical vessels. On the surrounding shelves are numerous labelled jars, among them one containing ‘hart’s horn’, a popular ingredient at the time, sourced from the male red deer. This ingredient was used to treat diarrhoea, fever, sunstroke, and insect and snake bites, as well as being a useful detergent and a leavening agent in baking. Next to this is a jar marked ‘sal’ – salt-based remedies remained popular into the 19th century. The second-century physician Galen gazes down on the proceedings as a mark of the chemist Siddall’s learning. Galen was an early practitioner of medicinal recipes – called ‘galenicals’ after him.

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Alchemy

Siddall’s trade card also points to the alchemical origins of pharmaceutical practices, as both relied on melting and distilling substances, represented by the brick furnaces and alembic vessels littering the scene. Originally, alchemy was a secretive activity, with its own complex and mystical imagery. By the 1740s it had become distinct from chemistry, and alchemists were popularly regarded as charlatans.

A woman with a basket in the background of Siddall's trade card.

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A woman holding a basket serves as a reminder that traditionally the art of distilling was the domain of women. It was a skill that involved techniques similar to those used in cooking, as suggested by the title of Sir Hugh Plat’s book Delightes for Ladies to Adorne their Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories (1602).

Women working in a distillery. Image from Georgica Curiosa Aucta ... , published in Nuremburg, 1716.

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In: Georgica Curiosa Aucta...

As chemistry overtook alchemy in the mid-18th century, the field of pharmacy widened and drug makers of all kinds proliferated. While apothecaries, licensed by the Royal College of Physicians, dominated the official manufacture of pharmaceutical products, there were plenty of experienced and unqualified tradesmen who practised as chemists and druggists. These shifting boundaries between alchemists, chemists, apothecaries and druggists in the mid-18th century are encapsulated in the design of Siddall’s trade card.

Julia is a Collections Researcher at Wellcome Collection with a background in art history. She co-curated the content within the Reading Room and has assisted with content selection for ‘Bedlam’, ‘Electricity: The spark of life’ and ‘Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?’

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An 18th-century trade card reveals far more than its owner may have intended.

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Theriac jar

The ancient remedy Theriac, also known as ‘treacle’, was in use for nearly 2,000 years. In addition to any medicinal effect, its success relied on premium ingredients, specific packaging, public spectacle and reputation – all factors that today help promote big brand names.

Legend has it that King Mithridates VI (132–63 BCE) of Pontus, a kingdom in Asia Minor, was so scared of being poisoned by his enemies that he invented an antidote that he took daily. When the Romans conquered Pontus they seized the famed remedy, known as mithridatium. Emperor Nero (37–68 CE) asked his physician, Andromachus, to improve on it, which he did primarily by substituting viper flesh for skink, a lizard native to the Nile. It was widely believed that snakes contained an antidote that prevented them from being poisoned by their own venom.

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Viper flesh

Nero’s improved formulation, Theriaca Andromachi, together with the original mithridatium, dominated the market for poison antidotes for nearly two millennia. Renowned physician Galen (130–210 CE) championed Theriaca Andromachi in particular, which ensured the popularity of these formulations for centuries, even though the original recipes were lost.

Their ancient ancestry certainly gave them an aura, as did the sheer volume of ingredients. In the first century CE, Aulus Cornelius Celsus suggested 38 ingredients, and Pliny the Elder suggested 54, commenting that “this is obvious ostentation of skill and prodigious exploitation of knowledge”. Galen’s own formulations seem to have stabilised the recipes, with around 52 ingredients for mithridatium and 60 for Theriac, including herbs, minerals and viper flesh. The presence of opium was also undoubtedly a key factor in their success. But medical historian Annette Bierman suggests that although the balsamic ingredients may have had a slight antiseptic action, any effect against poisoning would have been purely psychosomatic. 

The first page of ingredients for theriac in ‘Manufacturing Apothecary or Chemist’, 1741–95.

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Manufacturing Apothecary or Chemist

Over time theriac came to accommodate many variations; as Andromachus had adapted mithridatium to reflect European ingredients, so later apothecaries developed their own local versions. The Italian physician Pietro Mattioli (1501–77) created a super-antidote with 125 simple ingredients plus theriac, mithridatium, unicorn, red coral and pearls. Theriac of the Poor omitted viper’s flesh and contained only five inexpensive ingredients. In 1722, Theriac Edinensis appeared in the ‘Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia’ with only 11 ingredients. The term theriac was spread globally by missionaries, merchants and physicians, with evidence of recipes in Brazil, China and Japan from the 1700s. Forms of mithridatium appear in Islamic medical literature spanning seven centuries, probably derived from Galen and other Greek texts. 

Aleardo Terzi’s drawing shows apothecaries and inspectors examining the theriac preparation processes, watched by shadowy members of public in the gallery above.

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The manufacture of theriac at Bologna

In Europe, a key promotional tool for both theriac and mithridatium was the pomp and circumstance surrounding its public compounding in city squares by leading apothecaries. The ceremonies provided an opportunity to legitimise the preparations and to perpetuate the theriac brand. Galen wrote that theriac reached its greatest potency six years after preparation and kept its virtues for 40 years. There was therefore a practical logic in preparing large amounts at one time. In 1712, 150 kg of theriac was prepared at one session in Maastricht in the Netherlands. 

Hieronymus Brunschwig’s ‘Book for Distillation of Composite Things’, c. 1505 shows the public preparation of theriac by an apothecary in a city square, banners flying, watched closely by a physician.

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Print from Book for Distillation of Composite Things c1505

This theriac stamp depicts an ostrich and the lions of St Mark’s, Venice. It may have belonged to Albrizzi, whose theriac was prepared “at the sign of the Ostridge” in Venice. The stamp ensured that it was prepared under supervision.

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Rectangular wooden stamp for theriac labels

The English writer John Evelyn (1620–1706) purchased his ‘treacle’ after one such ceremony in Venice, confessing that “the making and extraordinary ceremony whereof I had been curious to observe, for it is extremely pompous and worth seeing”. These public events generally consisted of a display of ingredients to impress the citizens and allow officials to check their quality, followed by up to two days of preparing the ingredients, with constant inspections. Venice, like other cities, established supervisory committees and authenticated the highly expensive preparation with beautifully designed stamps, a precursor of the commercial power of the manufacturer’s brand logo. The last theriac ceremony happened in Paris in 1790. British apothecaries eschewed ceremonies, simply claiming that their preparations were superior to imported European theriacs.

Eventually theriacs began to lose their aura. Nicholas Culpeper’s description of theriacs as “terrible messes of altogether” was part of a wave of criticism from the 17th century onwards. French chemist Nicolas Lemery (1645–1715) criticised them as “monstrous descriptions, which only serve the purpose of throwing dust in one’s eyes, making the composition very expensive and difficult to prepare”. John Quincy (d. 1722) called them “the only relics of ancient superstition that now remain among us”.

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Theriac jars

The criticism crystallised in England with William Heberden’s ‘Antitheriaca: An essay on Mithridatium and Theriaca’ (1745). Heberden demanded that the random ingredients and potential toxicity be tested against rational theories and rigorous experiments. He also questioned how antique remedies would work against more recently discovered poisons. He claimed that greedy people had exploited the legends surrounding the remedies and people’s fear of poisons. His opposition may not have been entirely disinterested: his own variation of theriac, popularly known as Heberden’s Ink, remained in the ‘British Pharmacopoeia’ until 1890. 

The name theriac survived for around for two millennia as a pharmaceutical term. But a ‘brand’ name is not always a guarantee of quality.

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