The old Pharmacy

As you walk down the quiet cobbled street of Plovdiv’s Old Town, you’ll come across a building that looks, at first glance, like any other charming Revival-era home. But step inside, and you’ll enter a world once filled with the scent of herbs, the clink of glass vials, and the quiet whispers of healing secrets. Welcome to the Old Pharmacy Museum "Hippocrates" — the very first private pharmacy in Plovdiv.

This house was built in the early 19th century in typical urban Revival style, with a symmetrical façade, large windows, and an ornate wooden ceiling inside. But its true transformation came in 1870, when the renowned pharmacist Dr. Sotir Antoniadi, of Greek descent, opened a working pharmacy here. At a time when modern medicine was just taking root in Bulgaria, this place became a center for healing, science, and trust.

Dr. Antoniadi studied pharmacy and medicine abroad and brought back not only knowledge but also European medical instruments, books, and practices. His pharmacy served generations of Plovdiv citizens, offering remedies that blended Western pharmacology with traditional herbal cures. The building remained a pharmacy well into the 20th century.

Today, the museum recreates the original atmosphere of the working apothecary. Inside, you’ll see a carefully restored pharmacist’s office, complete with 19th-century wooden cabinets and original porcelain and glass jars used for storing herbs, powders, and tinctures, scales, mortars, pestles, and measuring tools, Medical books, handwritten prescriptions, and even herbariums documenting local plants once used in remedies. Also, you can enter the original garden where herbs were harvested. You will see some archaeological examples of the medical traditions in the region from Antiquity.

It is definitely a place worth visiting. As you walk down the quiet cobbled street of Plovdiv’s Old Town, you’ll come across a building that looks, at first glance, like any other charming Revival-era home. But step inside, and you’ll enter a world once filled with the scent of herbs, the clink of glass vials, and the quiet whispers of healing secrets. Welcome to the Old Pharmacy Museum "Hippocrates" — the very first private pharmacy in Plovdiv.

This house was built in the early 19th century in typical urban Revival style, with a symmetrical façade, large windows, and an ornate wooden ceiling inside. But its true transformation came in 1870, when the renowned pharmacist Dr. Sotir Antoniadi, of Greek descent, opened a working pharmacy here. At a time when modern medicine was just taking root in Bulgaria, this place became a center for healing, science, and trust.

Dr. Antoniadi studied pharmacy and medicine abroad and brought back not only knowledge but also European medical instruments, books, and practices. His pharmacy served generations of Plovdiv citizens, offering remedies that blended Western pharmacology with traditional herbal cures. The building remained a pharmacy well into the 20th century.

Today, the museum recreates the original atmosphere of the working apothecary. Inside, you’ll see a carefully restored pharmacist’s office, complete with 19th-century wooden cabinets and original porcelain and glass jars used for storing herbs, powders, and tinctures, scales, mortars, pestles, and measuring tools, Medical books, handwritten prescriptions, and even herbariums documenting local plants once used in remedies. Also, you can enter the original garden where herbs were harvested. You will see some archaeological examples of the medical traditions in the region from Antiquity.

It is definitely a place worth visiting.