RCP Museum Late: Healing words - the scents of Christmas

Join us to explore the role scent has played in medical history through recipe books and medical objects in the ‘Healing words’ exhibition, and take part in fun festive crafts.

Scents have paid a crucial role in medical history once thought to be both spreaders of, and protectors from, disease. Discover the theories behind the concept of bad air and how physicians and everyday folks protected themselves using sweet scents. Many of the key scents we would recognise today as also associated with Christmas, including cloves, orange peel, nutmeg and cinnamon.

We will be open from 5.30pm – 8pm for visitors to drop in and join a short talk exploring scent in the Healing words exhibition will be held at 6pm and 7pm on the gallery. Take part in fun activities including diagnosing the historic disease and guess the scent. Create your own dried or fresh pomanders that look and smell great as Christmas tree decorations or gifts.

Healing words explores the RCP’s collection of recipe books, an extraordinary resource showing how people lived in early modern England, and how healthcare functioned outside of the formal medical sphere. The books show us how medicine was understood and practiced at community level. They are glimpses into a world in which communities were self-sufficient, and people were intimately connected to one another, the land, the seasons and the cosmos. Their contents contributed to the very survival of families and communities.

The wider museum will also be open late that evening including our Treasures Room, portrait collections and anatomical tables.

Regent's Perk café will be open for drinks throughout the evening.