. . . Well, sort of. This month for “Fun Fact” Fridays, I’m sharing pictures from my visit to the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum in Virginia. An apothecary is essentially the forerunner of the pharmacist: they’d mix medicines, primarily, but also could whip up almost anything that required chemical knowledge–paint, for example, or perfume, or cleaning supplies.

For those who have read The Alchemical Tales–does this sound familiar? 😉 Red’s alchemy business is a lot like a historical apothecary. The main difference is that Red’s focus is experimental rather than medicinal. She spends a lot of time coming up with her own inventions, and she doesn’t sell a lot of pills or remedies. I didn’t just make up that distinction, either: historically speaking, an alchemist and an apothecary were very similar, except the alchemist probably would have been more interested in unraveling the secrets of the universe than helping you cure your cough.

Anyway, without further ado . . .

Above, you’ll see a historic image of the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary, and a picture of what it looked like last weekend. 😀 The museum is just off King Street in Alexandria, and it’s especially cool because when the apothecary shop went up for auction (after 141 years in business!) a historical society bought all of it. So pretty much everything you see is original.

The apothecary was opened in 1792, and since it’s in Alexandria, of course it served such illustrious persons as George and Martha Washington. 😉 Today it’s open for both self-guided and timed tours–if you have a spare 45 minutes and you’re in the area, it’s worth it!

One of the fun takeaways from this first part of the tour was that if you look closely at the labels on the ingredients, you’ll find things like aloe, ipecac, and the suspiciously familiar “opii” . . . opium! Opium was a popular remedy at the time because it soothed so many symptoms. It might also leave you with a serious addiction, but very few medicines at the time were perfect!

Stay tuned–next Friday, we’ll continue our tour in the apothecary’s workshop!