FROM DAGUERREOTYPE TO AUTOCHROME: AN INCURSION IN EUROPEAN, COLONIAL AND ROMANIAN PHARMACEUTICAL AND MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
FROM DAGUERREOTYPE TO AUTOCHROME: AN INCURSION IN EUROPEAN, COLONIAL AND ROMANIAN PHARMACEUTICAL AND MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Summary/Abstract: Pharmacists have the ability to be chemists and that is the reason they possess the knowledge to make photographs. For that purpose, especially in the 19th century, some pharmacists were photographers, so the two professions are related to a certain extent. The daguerreotype was an invention that was brought to the attention of the public in the summer of 1839 in Paris by Louis Daguerre. Although it was a French invention, it enjoyed a huge success in the United States, and for that purpose the most numerous daguerreotypes derive from the American continent. Some daguerreotypes from the pharmaceutical and medical domain will be presented in this work: a picture of the pharmacist Martin (Gamas), of the physician Charles Abadie and of the physician Gustave Adolphe Raichon. The description of the daguerreotypes will include some other particular examples of empirical restoration from the collection of the author. Another type of photography, important for the history of photography, is the autochrome, one of the first colour photographic process available to the public. It was invented by the Lumière brothers. An example of medical photography from colonial France (Morocco), portraying a case of leprosy, will be presented as well. In the end, some examples from the European and Romanian photography will illustrate the role of the pharmacy and of the pharmacist in the 19th century-early 20th century, as a snapshot of the health professional of that period. In conclusion, the picture speaks for itself and somehow, it can be a vivid time machine for the reconstruction of the past, not only in the fields of pharmacy and medicine, but in any other field as well.

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