New Orleans Pharmacy Museum

06/12/2026

While one of the main roles of the apothecary has always been the dispensing of medications, one might be surprised at just how similar the modern day “drug store” and the historical pharmacy can be, especially in the range of things offered. Louis Dufilho Jr., as well as other pharmacists of the period, wore a number of different hats – they filled prescriptions written by doctors as well as personally diagnosed and treated run-of-the-mill complaints. Their shops were often prominent fixtures of their communities by serving as a place for community members to gather.

Beyond this, it was common for pharmacists to provide services in many more areas aside from human medicine. With the skills (and tools) to distill, pharmacists regularly doubled as perfumers and heavily advertised the beautiful scented oils offered in their shops. One of the most common types of advertisements that Louis Dufilho Jr. put out was a list of stock recently delivered to his business, and from these lists we can glean that he imported en masse perfumed oils and other products principally used for perfume.

Being that man is an animal, pharmacists also served as veterinarians. A prescription for a horse or cow came up often, and patent medicines advertised the use of their products for “man or beast.” Prescription catalogs in the museum also indicate that pharmacists regularly filled scripts for dogs and horses, in addition to their many human clients.

Finally, pharmacies – like drug stores today – were a key location for purchasing beauty products. Hair treatments, dyes, oils, cosmetics, and the latest powders and creams would have been made available in pharmacies. In fact, the production of medications for most pharmacists in the 19th century was a small portion of their total revenue. These were catch-all centers for health, hygiene, and vanity, which laid the foundation for the modern day “drug store” experience.

06/05/2026

“This porridge caused her much pain for about 14 days. […] She noticed something black in the porridge, the size of a barley grain. About three weeks later, Satan came to her in the shape of a cat” – confessor Karen, wife of sexton Villads, on how she came to be a witch, 1663.

Ergot is a fungus, one that leeches from grains (mostly rye). The effects of excessive ergot ingestion are extreme, powerful, and dangerous. Ergot alkaloids – the substance inside of the fungus that makes it toxic to humans – get into the brain, where they can cause delirium. The fungus also impacts the vessels of the body, promoting constriction of blood flow. This constriction is so strong that the small vessels of the fingers and toes lose blood flow entirely – at first leading to extreme fire-like pain in the arms and legs, eventually leading to the loss of the digits or limb.

In the Middle Ages, this type of ergotism bore the name “St. Anthony’s fire” and was an epidemic among the peasant class, at times killing more than 8,000 people during its spread. This sickness may also present with “convulsive ergotism”, which has more psychiatric effects and causes uncontrollable shaking of the body.

Convulsive ergotism has long been theorized to have played a key role in witch hunts of the 17th century – in Salem, where several young girls developed convulsions and skin lesions despite being healthy beforehand, and in Norway, where many of the convicted specifically state that they first met the devil after consuming porridge.

While the effects of ergot are on their face quite scary, the dose, as always, is what makes the poison. Today, ergot alkaloids are used for their vascular effects, more than anything – methergine helps with uterine bleeding by constricting the womb, and ergot + caffeine medications have historically helped with extreme, acute migraines by constricting the vessels around the brain. These medications are not the first line treatments due to the risk of side effects, but their usage even in the modern day shows how healing can be harnessed even from things that may at first seem to cause only harm.

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06/04/2026

Check out the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum’s agenda for Museum Heritage Night on Thursday, July 2nd!

This admission-free evening of museums, memory, and American stories presented in conjunction with America’s 250th Anniversary is brought to you by the museums of . Explore the evolution and innovation of the United States over the last 250 years and learn the ways in which New Orleans and its people have directly contributed to the nation’s progress and advancement.

The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum’s Agenda:

4PM-7PM: Exhibit Debut, “Licensed to Practice: Louis Dufilho Jr. and the Making of American Medicine in New Orleans”

“Louis Dufilho Jr. received his pharmacy license in New Orleans on May 11, 1816, becoming the first officially licensed pharmacist in the United States. His achievement reflects more than an individual milestone—it reveals the unique historical legacy of New Orleans as a crossroads of cultures, laws, and medical traditions.”

4:30PM-6:30PM: Alexis & the Sanity

Enjoy a beverage in the courtyard and savor the sounds of amazing and beloved local duo

6PM-7PM: Docent Dialogue

New Orleans Pharmacy Museum docents Owen Ever & Grace Kennedy mingle and guide guests through the history of 514 Chartres Street, the historic building that was once home to America’s first licensed pharmacist, Louis Dufilho, Jr. Take a deeper look into Dufilho’s legacy, what it means to be a “licensed” medical professional, and the invaluable contributions made to the knowledge and progress of medicine by enslaved, Indigenous, and free communities.

06/03/2026

Have you ever considered what Alfred Nobel was inventing, way back before his award came to be? Maybe he was instrumental in some complex, lofty mathematics or theoretical science?

The answer is quite a bit more explosive. Alfred Nobel didn’t create nitroglycerin, but he began experimenting with it in 1862. At the time, nitroglycerin was a known substance, invented (and feared) by Ascanio Sobrero, who thought the substance was too dangerous to have any realistic use being that it was a more powerful explosive than gunpowder (although both come from minerals like saltpeter). But Nobel thought differently, and by mixing nitroglycerin with some more stable fillers, he created a substance we all know well today – dynamite.

Interestingly, in addition to being an explosive, nitroglycerin is also a very common pill. In 1879, following reports by doctors who had also tried the solution on themselves or patients, a doctor by the name of William Murrell wrote into the Lancet that he had been experimenting on himself for several days. This lackadaisical attitude toward their and their patient’s bodily health seems to have been somewhat of a trend among Dr. Murrell and his peers.

His first try was when he was out seeing patients and dosed himself with a solution of 1% nitroglycerin. Almost immediately, he began to shake and was forced to send the patient away just so that he could take his own rapid pulse. At the time, the most common treatment for heart pain (angina pectoris) was another nitrite, amyl nitrite, which had been discovered a few years prior. Amyl nitrites are inhaled, however, and their effects are very short and very powerful. Dr. Murrell noted that the effects of this solution lasted much longer than amyl nitrite but were otherwise similar. He then tested this theory on his patients, to varying effects.

Soon, the solution of nitroglycerin was being prescribed all over, even to Alfred Nobel himself, who noted the situation with some irony that his dynamite and medication had the same origin: “I have been prescribed [nitroglycerin 1%], to be taken internally! They call it Trinitrin, so as not to scare the chemist and the public.”

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05/22/2026

“When landlords turn the drunken bee / Out of the foxglove’s door, / When butterflies renounce their drams, / I shall but drink the more!” - I taste a liquor never brewed, Emily Dickinson 🪻

Also known as ‘fairy caps’ or ‘witches’ thimbles,’ the foxglove– in addition to housing the drunken bee – caught the attention of Dr. William Withering in 1775. He learned of the plant’s uses from an elderly woman in Shropshire, who “had sometimes made cures after the more regular practitioners had failed.” Specifically, this ‘old lady of Shropshire,’ was stated to have a cure for dropsy (what we now refer to as edema) made of 20 different herbs. Of these, Dr. Withering noted that the active ingredient was foxglove.

Over the course of the following 10 years, he prescribed it often. He often spoke about foxglove and its properties with ‘the poor’ of his town, for whom he would give advice for one hour every day free of charge. He eventually compiled his thoughts into a book “An Account of the Foxglove,” in 1785. Dr. Withering’s goal in his administration of foxglove was for its use as a diuretic, which he claimed the plant was able to do “more generally than any other medicine,” although admitted that it did not work in every patient.

Interestingly, though, his final “inference” about foxglove is the one that would become the most important: “That it has power over the motion of the heart, to a degree yet unobserved in any other medicine.”

He was more right than perhaps he knew. Foxglove, Latin name “digitalis purpurea,” is a cardiac glycoside (a term that means, functionally, that it decreases heart rate while increasing contraction strength). Separated by hundreds of years and miles, today we call the drug derived from foxglove “digoxin,” used for heart failure when other treatments fail.

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05/15/2026

One of the key artifacts at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum is a simple stamp, likely used for official correspondence by Louis Dufilho regarding pharmacy affairs. The symbol he chose to use might look a little familiar, at least in the center: a winding snake. The snake is common to all of the most-used representations for medicine, both the Caduceus staff and the rod of Asclepius. However, in the Dufilho stamp, the snake is wound around the trunk of a large tree, whose roots are shown digging deep into the ground below.

This design was not only a stylistic choice, but one that sought to convey the Dufilho mastery over all of the composite parts of the pharmacy. The snake for the animals, whose horns, blood, organs, and bones could all find their way into medicinal cures. The tree of life, blooming with all of the plants one might need to harvest. The ground and all of her minerals, bright calomel and silver and gold.

Today, herbal supplements, tinctures, and teas are quite popular, and well-proven: many people swear by the laxative effects of senna and the calming of lavender, among other things. But even the medicines delivered in sterile pill-form today got their start somewhere, and at times they are hardly separated at all from their natural ancestors, although the potency has often been increased through processing. Over the next few weeks we will discuss a few examples, namely digoxin, nitrates, and ergot. Along the way there are stories of discovery, advancement, and – in the case of at least one – magic.

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05/09/2026

We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who donated to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum this . Your generous contribution helps to keep the Pharmacy Museum’s mission alive and growing. Donors like you, who champion nonprofits and small businesses, are the driving force that empowers us to keep moving forward.

Thank you.

05/08/2026

Join the Historic BK House & Gardens on Sunday, May 17 for Dining by Design, an elegant evening celebrating design, culture, and the timeless spirit of New Orleans in honor of Historic BK House & Gardens’ Bicentennial.
Hosted in our historic French Quarter home and courtyard, Dining by Design will showcase imaginative tablescapes and florals created by leading designers and tastemakers, alongside exceptional cuisine by Pigeon Catering & Events, libations, music by violinist Abraham Santos Fernandez, and Alliance Francaise DJs William Clancy and Alan Nobili.
Featuring designs by Keith Carroll, Victoria Fager, Vesta Fort, Rebekah Founds, Celeste Marshall, Maria Wink Meyers + Kim Starr Wise, Ware Porter, Rebecca Singley, and Maureen Stevens Design.
Co-chaired by Randle Looney and Colleen Connor, proceeds from the evening directly support the preservation and restoration of BK House’s art, textiles, and ephemera.
For more information, please visit bkhouse.org/programs/
📍 Historic BK House & Gardens
✨ Celebrating 200 years of style, stories, and sophistication.

Join us Sunday, May 17 for Dining by Design, an elegant evening celebrating design, culture, and the timeless spirit of New Orleans in honor of Historic BK House & Gardens’ Bicentennial.

Hosted in our historic French Quarter home and courtyard, Dining by Design will showcase imaginative tablescapes and florals created by leading designers and tastemakers, alongside exceptional cuisine by Pigeon Catering & Events, libations, music by violinist Abraham Santos Fernandez, and Alliance Francaise DJs William Clancy and Alan Nobili.

Featuring designs by Keith Carroll, Victoria Fager, Vesta Fort, Rebekah Founds, Celeste Marshall, Maria Wink Meyers + Kim Starr Wise, Ware Porter, Rebecca Singley, and Maureen Stevens Design.

Co-chaired by Randle Looney and Colleen Connor, proceeds from the evening directly support the preservation and restoration of BK House’s art, textiles, and ephemera.

For more information, please visit bkhouse.org/programs/

📍 Historic BK House & Gardens
✨ Celebrating 200 years of style, stories, and sophistication

05/08/2026

“I have seen my death” - Anna Bertha Ludwig, wife of Wilhelm Röntgen, upon seeing her X-ray.

In the winter of 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen could be found almost always in his laboratory, by all reports working with a fervor every night. He had eaten all his meals there, and even slept there between his experiments. This work had been sparked by an experiment with invisible cathode rays in October, where he discovered what he referred to as a “new light,” a light that could pass through objects that were opaque to the naked eye. By coincidence, during the course of these experiments, as he passed his hand over the experiment area, he discovered something quite frightening – his own skeletal hand, impressed upon the film. Soon he was ready to move on to new specimens. On the evening of the 22nd of December, his wife volunteered, placing her left hand upon the photographic film that had replaced Röntgen’s initial, less stable chemical plates. The result was a ghostly impression of her skeleton, each finger carefully defined– excepting, of course, her ring finger, obscured by a circle of black. Her wedding ring.

Röntgen was himself puzzled by the nature of these “new lights,” and referred to them as “x-rays,” due to the mathematical definition of x, for “unknown.” His contemporaries would refer to these rays as “Röntgen Rays,” but the term x-ray took over the popular consciousness.

Mr. Röntgen’s “unknown rays” were an interesting fad for society. His findings were first published in the Vienna Newspaper in early January, and then translated for Nature by the end of that same month, followed swiftly by a publication in Science. Soon, x-ray images were being published in magazines, too – not just of human bodies but of other animals, as well as non-living things like coin purses.

While the medical usage of these pictures was quickly understood, people were just generally taken with the concept of this new form of photography, which promised to reveal the unseen and really show what a person was made of.

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