Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

In East London, just a short walk from the Tower of London, lies a hidden gem: the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Open Monday to Friday, 9am–5pm, located on the ground floor of the society’s modern office building, the museum explores the fascinating history of pharmacy and medicines. Discover apothecary jars, bloodletting tools, vintage bottles of opium and cocaine along with other paraphernalia of pharmacy past.

Among the more obvious pharmacy history material, there is an unexpected find – a taxidermy Nile crocodile!

You would be forgiven for wondering why a pharmacy museum might have a crocodile, but in fact they were a common sight in apothecaries of the 18th century. Crocodiles were a symbol of the apothecary, in the way that the green cross signposts pharmacies today. (The connection goes further, as the RPS was instrumental in the design of the green cross in the 1980s).

References to crocodiles in apothecary shops can be traced back to Shakespeare. Similar depictions of the apothecary in art and literature can be seen throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

By the 20th century, few crocodiles were seen in pharmacies, but their connection to the profession continued. The RPS’s School of Pharmacy, now part of UCL, had a Nile crocodile as their mascot, taken to university sports events and held above the cheering crowd.

Despite their long connection to pharmacy, it is unclear exactly why exactly crocodiles were popular. Some say the crocodile was used as a stand in for a dragon. A wyvern, representing disease and defeated by the god of health Apollo, can be found in the centre of the coat of arms of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.

Another idea is that the crocodile was used to advertise the apothecary’s ability to source rare and unusual ingredients.

Whatever their origin, this crocodile proudly takes its place in the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society as an important part of pharmacy history.