"Juan A. Domínguez" Pharmacobotanic Museum

School of Pharmaceutics and Biochemistry of the University of Buenos Aires Junín 956 - 1st Floor
Tel. 4964-8235
Open Mondays through Fridays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Holidays: January, February and winter holidays

Dr. Juan A. Domínguez, an eminent scientist, was the founder of this Museum and its first director This institution was born on April 29, 1900, under the name of "Julio A. Roca" National Institute of Botany. There are basically three types of collections exhibited: the herbarium; drugs of plant origin, and woods. The French scholar Armando Bonpland's archive (with importan histotical and scientific information and documents, dating back to 1799 and 1858), as well as his native, ethnographic, zoological, mineralogical, historical and petrographic collections are also exhibited. The herbarium consists of more than 800,000 specimens comprising the whole plant kingdom. Many specimens are over 100 years old, and the collections are of a general, local, regional, European and worldwide nature, which makes them very useful for systematic ecological and phytogeographic research. There are personal herbariums like those that formerly belonged to Lorentz and Hieronymus, two German botanists, that were brought to the country by Sarmiento, The collection of drugs includes all native medicinal plants, and the collection of wood specimens includes all native and foreign flora. Collections of fungi, algae, drugs used in herb formulas, as well as forbidden drugs, are exhibited together with products for medicinal applications and pharmacobotanic adulterations. Also on exhibition are historical and anthropological objects, weapons, utensils and photographs of Calchaquí natives, whose living conditions Mr. Domínguez tried to improve from his position as Chairman of the Honorary Committee for Indian Settlements.