VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Serving an average of more than 2,000 clients a day, the Vatican pharmacy may be one of the world’s busiest in-person dispensaries of pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter medicines, soaps, ointments and elixirs.

Run since 1874 by the Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God, the pharmacy continues to produce some of its own ointments and potions, Brother Thomas Binish Mulackal told the Vatican newspaper.

The Vatican’s own products include a cream for preventing bedsores, anise and quinine elixirs, six different fragrances of soap, lavender water, an anti-acne lotion and a specially produced aftershave, said Brother Mulackal, the pharmacy director.

The laboratory where the products are made – and where pharmacists mix some drugs to meet physicians’ exact prescriptions for their patients – is about to undergo an expansion, he said.