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St. Croix Landmarks Society Christiansted Apothecary Hall
 Located in downtown Christiansted, the Apothecary, a nineteenth-century Danish Colonial pharmacy museum, serves as brief a history lesson for all. The pharmacy was established by a Danish pharmacist who arrived in St. Croix in 1816 to prepare medicines for the Danish military garrison in Christiansted, then capital of the Danish West Indies. Initially medicines were manufactured for the Danish soldiers as well as the other physicians and pharmacists in the Danish West Indies. Unlike the addictive opium-containing medicines widely used in the U.S.A. at the time, the Danish pharmacists practiced what is known as "heroic medicine."
This consisted of dispensing harshly-acting chemical compounds of antimony, lead, and mercury to treat ailments that they understood even less than the drugs they were administering to their patients. The last owner of this pharmacy continued to operate this pharmacy until he retired in 1970 and donated his handsome unique drug jars and pharmaceutical equipment to the St. Croix Landmarks Society. The fully restored pharmacy opened in its original location, in 1987. Today the pharmacy is used as an exhibit for the public. The St. Croix Archeological Society plans to use the old Apothecary as a museum that will offer the public a chance to explore evidence of the Indian tribes that lived here during 3,000 years of the island's human history. The collection will display such items as pottery, axe heads, beads and an ancient canoe.
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| | © 2008, St. Croix Landmarks Society. All rights reserved. |
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