Exhibition: Art Exhibition and Herbarium Exhibition

This two week long exhibition will contain paintings from the recently published book 'The illustrated College Herbal. Plants from the Pharmacopea Londonensis of 1618' and treasures from the Herbarium of the Pharmaceutical Society.

The botanical art work that will be on display was published in The Illustrated College Herbal. Plants from the Pharmacopoea Londinensis of 1618. It illustrates the medicinal plants that were used 400 years ago to make medicines for the College Physicians. They range from watercolours on paper and vellum, to pencil drawings and lithographs to pen and ink.

The herbarium exhibition will highlight plant specimens from all over the world which are in the 6000 examples in the herbarium of the Pharmaceutical Society. The ones chosen had importance in cardiac medicine in the 19th century, and will be shown in association with the exhibition in the College of the works of William Harvey who first described how the blood travelled from the heart around the body and the lungs. Information on some of the great plant collectors from that era will be displayed, with a particular interest in the medical men who risked their lives collecting in perilous places.