Take a trip to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum

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Originally published at: Take a trip to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum | Boing Boing

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Cool. I’ve walked by there countless times and somehow have never noticed it. Next time I’m the area I’ll check it out and then go next door to the Napoleon House for a muffaletta in the courtyard

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Leeches are still occasionally used in US medicine today. They can stimulate blood flow in damaged skin after surgeries or transplants.

Leeches make infrequent appearances on the show “Botched” (a reality show featuring a pair of plastic surgeons who specialize in repairing damage caused by prior surgeries. I recommend watching a few episodes if you or a loved one are considering plastic surgery.)

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It’s a very cool museum. It’s not like newer, well lit, AV guided tour type museums, more like exploring a somewhat creepy curiosity store. Exhibits are undersold in small antique apothecary cabinets and can feel a bit underwhelming at first.

It GREATLY rewards taking a lot of time to read every single card in the exhibit cases. The second floor has a fascinating exhibit about the overlap of midwifery and early medical ob/gyn doctors (and that the free black midwives were one hell of a lot less likely to kill off their patients and used by most white families in the city). Other than all the package toxic or addictive as hell patent medicines they’ve collected, the cabinet of numbered semi legitimate under the counter voodoo potions that were sold was really interesting.

I had no idea that there was real history behind the song Love Potion #9. But New Orleans pharmacists worked with voodoo practitioners to give respectable white folks to dabble with voodoo in a way that was “safe” and “modern” and wouldn’t be spotted by neighbors as they were shopping by prescription numbers and no spell names. ( FWIW - #9 was NOT a love potion, but I can’t remember what it was).

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If you ever find yourself in Basel, Switzerland there is also an interesting pharmacy museum there as well.

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Anyone interested in this should also check out the BBC Victorian Pharmacy series (available on YouTube) featuring the inimitable Ruth Goodman among others.

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