Disappearing panorama of social history, Antigone Pavlidou focuses our attention on pharmacies. He records and chronicles the establishment of the first pharmacies in Athens and their evolution up to the Second World War in a book rich in information and exhaustive in research.

Interestingly, Antigoni Pavlidou herself is a pharmacist and that, guided by her love of Athens and history, she set about preparing a complete study that provides knowledge and valuable data on the organization of pharmacies in the capital from the time of Otho to 1940. .

This is a whole hundred years, a long period of organization and armor of bourgeois society, the strengthening of science over the practical or comradely, the spread of a new social hierarchy.

Antigoni Pavlidou undoubtedly has a gift for research, that is, she has method and patience, and uses many sources and archives, so her book “Athenian Pharmacies” subtitled “From the advent of Otho to the Second World War” (ed. Eumaros) not only to enrich the literature, but also to deepen the understanding of climate.

Essentially, and although it is the story of the first pharmacists and famous pharmacists of old Athens, Antigone Pavlidou’s book is a parallel history of the capital’s social structure, as well as a dense anthropocentric narrative.

The book is a parallel history of the social structure of the capital.

Progress and development

The anthropogeography of the pharmacists, in which the reader will also find many famous names such as Damvergis, Bakakos, Letos or Marinopoulos, develops in a penetrating way into the body of Athenian society, which also gradually became a great fusion. pot. Since the 19th century, the pharmacies of Athens have been identified with progress and development, as well as social cohesion. An interesting element is the preparation of medicines and cosmetics by the pharmacists themselves, a practice widespread in the past.

The reader will also realize that the development of pharmacies also followed genealogy and that often the social geography of an area necessarily included pharmacies as important landmarks.

The reaction of the architect Nikos Rooseas as a reader of Antigoni Pavlidou’s study is indicative and characteristic: “I had the pleasure,” he says, “to see the pharmacy of my great-grandfather Georgios Vamvilis, later (my grandfather) Antonio Sp … Ruzeas and my father Spiros Anta. Rosea (Lenormand aged 35, founded 1880)… I also saw the pharmacy of my other grandfather, Nikolaos K. Christopoulos, my mother’s father, later Angela Nick. Christopoulos (Zoodochos Pigi and Arahovi)… There is also a mention of the Pharmacy of Dimitris K. Christopoulos, my grandfather’s brother, on Epirou and Liosion Street, later Kostas D. Christopoulos, and then my cousin Dimitris K. Christopoulos… History of Athens too…”.

The Pharmacies of Antigone Pavlidou, with their rich bibliography and attribution of the sources of all elements, are an important contribution to the enrichment of knowledge about the history of Athens. At the same time, this indirectly reminds us that Athens, unlike other capitals in terms of their history, has not retained a single old pharmacy as a tourist attraction and a business at the same time. The memory of the demolition of the Dambergis pharmacy at 39 Panepistimi Street in the 1970s is traumatic.