Wholesale National Congress of French Pharmacists – Illustrated Programme – Lyon, 1951

Rare and unique document. This official program of the National Congress of Pharmacists of France, held in Lyon in 1951 (MCMLI), is an exceptional witness to post-war professional and cultural life in Lyon. The large softcover volume gathers the official elements of the congress, period institutional advertisements and literary contributions. Included are, notably, announcements from the Purchasing Cooperative of Lyon Pharmacists and the Société Parisienne d'Expansion Chimique, brands Spécia Rhône-Poulenc, reflecting the French pharmaceutical industrial fabric of the time. A poem by Claude Boncompain, a Lyonnais poet, appears inside, evoking Lyon, the Saône and the city's nights. The copy also contains a pasted-in document of great rarity. A membership form for the Société de Pharmacie de Lyon, adorned with an old engraved vignette depicting an allegorical landscape with a pharmaceutical emblem, filled in with a pen and signed by the President, the Secretary and the General Secretary. Unique composite item. Large softcover, white card cover, two-color typography in black and red. Condition. Cover stained and creased, worn corners. Interior well preserved, without annotations. Ideal piece for a collector of pharmacy history, Lyoniana, professional ephemera or 20th-century French industrial history.