Liberal Pharmacy

+ INFO

Varnished wood

Lisbon, Portugal

Founded in 1890

Inv. no. 9881

Pharmacy Museum Lisbon


Its beautiful wood cabinets from the early 20th century have motifs of Moorish influence carved on top. The decoration of this pharmacy is very restrained, hardly going beyond some representations of the Pharmacy s covered drug jars from the Fábrica de Sacavém (Sacavém Factory), dating from the 1850s, with decoration in green and gold.


The ancient decorated apothecary stoneware gave way to pharmacy flasks in blue, brown or colorless glass, with beautiful gold labels, and porcelain pharmacy jars The various pharmaceutical specialties, beauty products, childcare articles and advertising are now displayed on counters-showcases.


The Liberal Pharmacy, founded on 11 August 1890, was established at Avenida da Liberdade, in Lisbon. on 14 of November of 1942 the newspaper Século Illustrado defined it as:

“(...) one of the best pharmacies in the capital, due to its splendid facilities, its magnificent range, its staff with well-known technical competence and the correct service provided to its numerous clientele.”


Particularly active extracts and tinctures were prepared in the laboratory of the pharmacy where new pharmaceutical forms were perfected, such as pills, capsules or wafer-capsules, tablets or compressed pills, gelatin capsules, granulates, dosimetric granules, injectable solutions, suppositories and vaginal ovules, ointments and mineral-medicinal waters.


As pharmaceutical specialties prepared in this laboratory, some products were famous, such as, among others, the Liber como os (Freedom with Fruit Salts) and the Salomé beauty products Salomé, including the eau de Cologne and the Elixir, as well as the famousBrisas do Rio perfume.


At that time its owner and technical director was the pharmacist Adolfo Teixeira, who held the positions of president of the Sociedade Farmacêutica Lusitana (Lusitana Pharmaceutical Society) and the Associação dos Farmacêuticos Portugueses (Association of Portuguese Pharmacists) and director of the newspaper “O Monitor de Farmácia” (The Pharmacy Monitor). His successor in the pharmacy was Alcindo Teixeira, also a worthy representative of the pharmaceutical class, who for a long period of time also held the position of director of the Grémio Nacional das Farmácias (National Guild of Pharmacies).