Show globe
A show globe is a glass vessel filled with coloured liquid that stood in a pharmacist’s window as the sign of the trade. Laws in New Hampshire and Washington still forbid shops without a licensed pharmacist from displaying one.
Meaning
The DEA Museum describes show globes as clear glass vessels filled with colourful liquid, shown in apothecaries’ windows, and puts them with the mortar and pestle as historic symbols of apothecaries and pharmacists. By the late 19th century, the Dittrick Medical History Center writes, they worked as signage, telling passers-by what was inside as the barber’s pole did. The pharmacy journals of the day advised druggists to build their windows round them, lit from behind with a mirror so that they glowed at night. An 1885 article in the American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, quoted by Dittrick, doubted that any druggist could say why he kept one “except for the single reason that others do”. A student history on the blog of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Pharmacy says they continue to be a symbol of the profession.
Origin and history
Nothing definite is known about their purpose, the VCU blog says, and it sets out the theories. One dates them to around the 16th century, as a sign bright enough to catch the eye of a mostly illiterate public in crowded streets. A story has an apothecary’s lit globes guiding Julius Caesar’s boats ashore in Britain around 53 BC, after which Caesar let apothecaries keep them. Another ties them to maceration, the soaking of solids in liquid, which needed the best light in the shop: the front window. The DEA Museum says most historians agree the globes were used to attract customers and as a sign of the profession, a recognizable symbol in dark, narrow streets for a public that often could not read.
Did the colours warn of plague?
No, by the DEA Museum’s account: it calls this one of the most common myths about show globes. The story goes that red liquid warned travellers to avoid a town with plague or under quarantine, and green told them all was well. The VCU blog lists it among the unproven theories, with a variant set in the Great Plague of London, and Dittrick says the meanings of the colours are still debated.
What was in them
The Era Formulary of 1893, Dittrick writes, gave more than 50 formulas for coloured show globe liquids. The colours faded and needed periodic refreshing. Sunlight shining through the cut glass and off the mirrors occasionally set goods in the window alight, which led some pharmacists to find the displays too dangerous by day.
The law today
Two American states still treat the globe as the sign of a pharmacy. New Hampshire’s pharmacy law, which dates back to 1921, forbids a store without a licensed pharmacist from showing any show bottle or globe of coloured glass, or globe filled with coloured liquid, that creates the impression that prescription drugs are for sale. Washington makes it a misdemeanour to display the characteristic pharmacy symbols, bottles or globes, coloured or filled with coloured liquids, without a licensed pharmacist regularly employed in the business during pharmacy hours.
Read next
- Next in Symbols of medicineRod of AsclepiusA single snake coiled around a plain staff. It is the emblem of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, and the symbol of medicine used by the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association.
- The same shape in Adinkra symbolsBese SakaBese Saka, a bunch of kola nuts, is the adinkra symbol of affluence, abundance and unity.
See also
Caduceus, Bowl of Hygieia, Red cross, Red Lion and Sun, Lamp of Florence Nightingale.
Sources
- Apothecary Show Globe, Collection spotlight, DEA Museum, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Artifact description
- The Colorful (and Dangerous?) History of Show Globes, Catherine Osborn, Dittrick Museum blog, Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University, Blog post
- Auxiliary Label: The ancient, mysterious history of pharmacy show globes, Student blog, School of Pharmacy News Archive, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy, Blog post
- RSA 318:40, Unauthorized Practice of Pharmacy, New Hampshire Revised Statutes, Title XXX, Chapter 318, New Hampshire General Court, 318:40
- RCW 18.64.250, Unlawful practices: penalty, Revised Code of Washington, Title 18, Chapter 18.64, Washington State Legislature, (6)
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
Added .