Abstract
Based on a profound examination and evaluation of archival materials, the paper reconstructs the lives of eighteen pharmacists - members of the Czech-Moravian Capuchin Province from the 17th to the 19th century, of which sixteen served as monastic pharmacists. In addition to the identified biographical data (based on archival materials), the Latin summary reports on the life of a particular capuchin on the occasion of his death (the so-called elogia) from the Capuchin Provincial Chronicle (Annales capucinorum) are edited, together with their commented Czech translation.
The discovered data allow a deeper insight into the pharmaceutical history of the Czech-Moravian Capuchin Province, where three monastic pharmacies were operated in Brno, Prague in Hradčany and Olomouc, and also a monastic pharmaceutical study was established. The published material also provides some new data on contemporary pharmaceutical practice, which are set in the context of literature.
The paper illustrates the transfer of knowledge between the world of secular and monastic pharmacy at the places where future monastic pharmacists received their education (the pharmacies "The White Eagle" in Karlovy Vary, the pharmacy of brothers' hospitallers in Prostějov, "The Golden Eagle" in Opava, "The White Unicorn" in the Old Town of Prague). The paper also highlights the intensive involvement of monastic pharmacists in the management of plague epidemics in the years 1680-1713 (often at the cost of their own lives), as well as the above-standard proximity to the patients in monastic hospitals in carrying out routine nursing and pharmacy practice.
The paper adds sharper contours to the image of the pharmacist at that time by detailing the life stories of individual pharmacists (e.g., the previous career as a military surgeon and the iconographic circumstances of death, or the career extension in the form of participation in the order meetings in Rome). Analysis of the preserved manuscript Annotationes medicae Fr.
Absolonis from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries not only introduces an interesting pharmaceutical memorabilia, but also illustrates the professional maturation of the last Capuchin pharmacist. In the final part of the paper, the data about twenty-two pharmacists who unsuccessfully tried to join the Capuchin Order are given.
It not only demonstrates admission practice in the Capuchin order, in which spiritual interest outweighed the practical, but also bears witness to other pharmaceutical phenomena of the time, such as the fate of the pharmacist from the abolished Jesuit Order or the development of pharmacy in the Carthusian monastery in Valdice.