Vintage Paris Pharmacy Makes for a Fascinating Accidental Discovery

This vintage Paris pharmacy experience shared by Pamela Rogers is a wonderful insight into the enthusiasm and excitement that travel inspires in all of us. Pam is part of the community of France-Travel-Info followers who loves to travel and clearly loves France.

When she commented on a post on Facebook about a vintage Paris pharmacy, I couldn’t help asking if she would share some insights and photos with us here on the blog. Thanks, Pam, for jumping in and writing this interesting and enthusiastic post!

In Search of Paris Fun

In April of 2017 we flew from our home in Seattle to Paris. April in Paris, who can ask for more? While we have a bit of traveling under our belt, a trip to Paris was not something I had ever dreamed of – it never occurred to me that I could go.

I was nervous about being a stereotypical American in Paris, but we did our best to learn key phrases and become members of each community we visited and not tourists. EVERYONE we encountered was friendly, kind and welcoming, though I think our timing with the first week of sunny days after a dreary winter helped!

After a ten hour flight and taking the train to our hotel, the Hotel Flor Rivoli, we assumed we would collapse in bed and start exploring the next day. Moments after arriving and getting unpacked – we were suddenly full of energy and walked over to an open air market just on the opposite side of Notre Dame.

Don’t think we were casual about any of this – our eyes were wide and while we wanted to wait and officially see things while on our ‘virtual walks with Rick Steves’ that we had downloaded to our phones at home, we found ourselves stopping and looking at everything in awe.

The Bridges! The River! Notre Dame! After picking up a few things to eat at the market and stopping at a charcuterie we finally went back to the hotel and took a long nap before heading out a few hours later to walk through the Tuileries Garden and ride the Ferris Wheel. This was just the first day. Every day was filled with the same sense of awe and exploration, walking until we (well, I) couldn’t take another step.

Paris is such and easy city to walk through…

Paris is such an easy city to walk through, so many streets, so many windows to stop and gaze into AND it’s nearly all flat, unlike Seattle where everywhere you go is uphill! But all this walking leads to sore feet, no matter how great the walking shoes you are wearing. After only a few hours it no longer took time to muster up courage to enter a store and gently call out Bonjour!

When I knew in order to continue walking the miles we were walking each day, I was going to need some sort of relief for my aching feet, we kept our eyes open for a pharmacy. We found this lovely building, the Pharmacie Pelletier at 48 rue Jacob, which sold an over the counter pain medication.

The interior of the building is beautiful, high ceilings and amazing woodwork. The woman working at the pharmacy was so kind and I wished I spoke more than a smattering of French. I did ask about the history of the building and she was happy to share but I just couldn’t keep up.

I wonder if that is some sort of barometer in the center panel of the wall?

When we returned to our hotel that night I looked up the history of the pharmacy. I learned that Pierre-Joseph Pelletier, born in 1788, was a French chemist. And,  like his father, he was also a pharmacist. Pierre-Joseph Pelletier did research on vegetable alkaloids and was the co-discoverer of quinine and strychnine. He and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou were honored in 1900 with a statue at St. Michel which was destroyed in World War 2. Imagine what I would have missed if my feet weren’t sore!

Front window display

Just How Old is this Pharmacy?

Pam’s description of this pharmacy and its “young owner” intrigued me. How old is this pharmacy? Pierre-Joseph Pelletier was the son of Bertrand Pelletier (2). He was the son of the first Bertrand Pelletier (1) who lived from 1729 – 1784. It was Bertrand (1) who was the first owner of the pharmacy in this family.

He took over the pharmacy from chemist and apothecary Guillaume-Francois Rouelle. It was Rouelle who opened the original pharmacy in 1746 when he obtained the title of “apothicaire privilégié” (privileged apothecary). Wow, the pharmacy is older than the United States!

Thanks, Pam, for sharing your enthusiasm for traveling in France!

One more of Pam’s photos before we close:

On the little card we find:

Machine à ondes
Wave Machine
Lucerne, Hans Friedinger
début de XXe siècle (beginning of the 2oth century)

With my curiosity piqued, some hours later find myself at a dead end.  I discovered only a document indicating a similar item listed at auction in July and October of 2020. Don’t you love a good mystery? If any readers know anything about the history behind this Wave Machine, please note in the comments and satisfy my curiosity.

Pop over to Pamela’s blog to see what she is writing about!

As always, thanks for reading my blog.