76 years old, but what a picture!
Isn't it a picture, this building? I would be in awe of it. For minutes. Scan the building meter by meter. Search for details. Etching on my retina. And meanwhile dreaming about the year 1909, when it was built.
This year the building is celebrating [as part of the hospital; see further] his 76th birthday and that is about the average life expectancy of a human being. But it survives us all, because it has a mission: to promote traditional Thai herbal medicine in a society where a doctor is only considered competent when he prescribes a battery of (Western) pills. No fewer than five different pills and capsules in beautiful candy cane colours.
We look at the Chaophraya Abhaibhubejhr building, an elegant one mansion of two floors, built in a baroque style popular in Europe at the time. The building was therefore designed by a French company.
The client was the then Siamese governor of Battambang, which is now part of Cambodia. Choom Abhaiwongse (1861-1922) built it as a shelter for King Rama V when he would visit Prachin Buri again. But that did not happen, because the monarch died before the building was finished.
The building, now owned by the state, served as a temporary shelter for patients in 1941 when the Chaophraya Abhaibhubejhr Hospital was built. The article does not state what the destination was between 1909 and 1941.
That hospital, originally named Prachin Buri Hospital, was the first of nineteen provincial hospitals in Thailand. Thanks to this oldie, it acquired the status of the most beautiful hospital in Thailand.
The article also does not mention how long the building served as an infirmary. It immediately jumps to the present, in which the building serves as a museum of traditional Thai medicine. Visitors (who don't have to pay, admission is free) get an idea of the history of herbal medicine, there are old medical instruments on display and the museum has an impressive collection of jars with traditional herbs and pharmaceutical products.
The hospital has collected two thousand different types of herbs and eight hundred traditional medical books over the past thirty years. But the collection is still far from complete, so the staff continues to locate the herbs listed in the ancient books.
In addition to the hospital and museum, there is also an English-style herb garden, traditional medicine shops and a Thai massage parlour. The hospital sells herbal products under its own brand name, such as skin care products, soap, shampoo and hair conditioners.
Source: Bangkok Post