A long period of collecting and reconstructing pharmaceutical practice is represented by the name of Wolfgang Schneider. He amassed historical artefacts documenting the incorporation of alchemical knowledge into early modern pharmacopoeias and pharmacies, established a working group and convinced the university to integrate an “alchemical laboratory” in the newly constructed pharmacy building of the 1960s. The group's findings were published in monographs and, more importantly, in the “Arzneimittelhistorisches Lexikon”, which translates items from earlier nomenclatures into the new chemical and botanical language, while also assembling important primary literature on the substances. Eventually, both collection and encyclopedia expanded their focus until the early 20th century.
Despite the original method's epistemic shortcomings, translations from documents into practice and the language of modern chemistry provide insight into how the world of the pharmacopoeas can be translated to cultural and industrial history. This is helpful both for further inter- and transdisciplinary research, for teaching and for outreach purposes. This paper will present two practical reconstruction examples: “Oleum philosophorm” and “Aurum potabile”.