THE EVOLUTION of medicine will be explored in a new exhibition at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum.
Curious Cures and Marvellous Medicines delves into the museum’s social history collection to chart the development of medical science.
The exhibition features medical instruments including a tonsil snare and syringes, and medicine bottles, many from Rugby-based pharmacies past and present, such as H Cook, Wilford Smith and Paddox Pharmacy.
Old advertisements for weird and wonderful medicines also form part of the exhibition, including a cure for television eye-strain which promised to make eyes feel “as fresh and sparkling as a dew-drenched rose in the morning sun.”
Curious Cures and Marvellous Medicines also includes an interactive children’s play area, complete with a chemist shop.
Catherine Shanahan, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum’s senior collections officer, said the inspiration for the exhibition followed a review of items in the social history collection.
She said: “We secured funding from the West Midlands Museum Development programme to hire an expert from Worcester’s George Marshall Medical Museum to review the medical items in the collection, many of which were donated by local doctors.
“It helped us to identify many of the more unusual items and learn how to handle and store some of the medicines we have.”
Curious Cures and Marvellous Medicines opens at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum on Saturday (September 21) and runs until March 14.
Rugby Borough Council growth and investment spokeswoman Coun Jill Simpson-Vince said: “Social history exhibitions always prove popular at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, and Curious Cures and Marvellous Medicines features items which have never been put on public display before.
“The exhibition promises to give a unique insight into the ever-changing world of medicine.”
Visit www.ragm.co.uk for more information about exhibitions and events at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum.
