Farmacia storica degli incurabili
Baroque apothecary of gilded shelves and painted majolica jars, once mixing toxic syphilis cures.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Farmacia storica degli incurabili in Naples opens inside its gilded eighteenth-century apothecary, built to treat a disease patients were too ashamed to name. You'll hear how Maria Lorenza Longo, a Catalan noblewoman who believed herself miraculously healed, founded the hospital in the fifteen-twenties for people other institutions refused. The guide follows the mercury and arsenic treatments dosed at the long walnut counter, the bezoar stones and viper's-flesh remedies shelved nearby, and the grim saying Neapolitans coined about the cure. Stand at the counter and look up at the painted jars that once held it all.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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