On researching “interesting things to do in St. John’s, Newfoundland,” I came across this amazing article on the Newfoundland & Labrador Pharmacy Museum. I am obsessed with antique pharmaceutical items. Maybe it’s my graphic design training that gets me all excited when I see the labels on old packaging or bottles. Or maybe it’s my love of history. Whenever I’m in a vintage shop, I peruse their selection of old pill bottles or perfume canisters to see what I can discover. When I visited Lisbon, I fell in love with their vast Pharmacy museum. But the museum in Lisbon was more about the history of pharmaceuticals over time. In contrast, the Newfoundland & Labrador Pharmacy Museum is an exact replica of a working pharmacy from the 1920s in the heart of St. John’s.
Stepping in here feels like going back in time. It is a joyful place to visit too. That might seem odd since you might associate medical museums with being a bit morbid. But honestly, the museum staff adds so much excitement and interest to all the objects on display. These old pharmacies would have been a local hangout and place to socialize back in the day and the friend faces inside continue that tradition on today. It’s hard not to get carried away looking at every jar and bottle on the shelves. Asking questions about what each ingredient was used for. Luckily, your guides have ALL the answers and will be more than happy to cure your rabid curiosity.
In the early 19th century, the city of St. John’s in seaside Newfoundland was on the rise. The population was growing thanks to the development of the seal, salmon and Grand Banks fisheries. But a horrible fire in 1892 destroyed almost all of what was then downtown St. John’s. The fire cause 11,000 of its citizen to become homeless and cost over $13 million in damages. Government buildings, churches and commercial businesses were all burnt to the ground. This also included the eight drug stores that operated within the city.
In 1922, Peter O’Mara was one of the first to reopen a new drug store. The pharmacy opened at 488 Water Street, where we find the museum today. Water Street was located right along the waterfront. This meant the drug store could efficiently service all the naval officers, fishermen and sailors working on the docks. Peter O’Mara‘s druggery had been operating in St. John’s since 1899, but he had outgrown his previous Drug Store. And thanks to the fire this was his push to expand. The architect of his new store went with Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, popular during the 1920s. Today, the pharmacy is a shining example of that kind of architecture and interior design that has otherwise disappeared over the years.
Walking inside this pharmacy, you’ll notice right away the amazing originally restored elements of the interior. This includes the original tin ceilings, ornate cabinets and aged maple flooring. All these were evidence of the money that went into the Pharmacy making it such a special place to shop! All of the original oak fixtures were made in England and shipped to Newfoundland. Quite a journey in the 1900s and a shipment that would have been extremely expensive. But pharmaceuticals were a lucrative business. And Peter O’Mara wanted to make sure his Pharmacy stood out. When the drug store was finally closed, the fixtures were sold off. Luckily, the museum was able to repurchase them in 1975. Turns out they were being used inside the nearby Donald Hogan drug store.
The design of Peter O’Mara’s Pharmacy was based on the traditional British system of druggery. Therefore designed in a classic English style. This system focused on apprenticeship to learn the trade. Apprentices would be paid a meagre salary and their time in service as an apprentice would last years. They were given room and board by the advising pharmacist but little spending money. Many pharmacies would be a two-storey building, with a living space above the main shop. Apprentices would work for four to ten years before they would be consisdered members of the guild of Pharmacy. Only after this time could they practice independently.
The life of an apprentice was tough. After all, the job of a pharmacist held the lives of people in their hands. Proper training, good service and top-notch medical knowledge were of the utmost importance. The apprentice’s work would consist of simple tasks like cleaning, pounding crude material, preparing mixtures, measuring quantities and taking stock of supplies. Back then, you couldn’t just simply order all your ingredients. Many of them needed to be made by scratch. So when you walk inside the museum and see the hundreds of glass jars and bottles on the wall you really appreciate how much work making the elements for just one prescription would have been.
What is also super interesting to take note of is that all the labels are written in Latin. Latin was still a very rare language for someone to read or write back in Newfoundland during the 20th century. But this was yet another skill the apprentices had to learn. Latin was still being used on the bottles and as well as on the written prescriptions from doctors.
The 20th-century Pharmacy was more than just a drug store. It was a local hangout. Every day goods were sold here, almost like a general store, it wasn’t just pharmaceuticals. And who wouldn’t want to hang out inside such a pretty shop?! The store would have also carried exclusive imported items from England and France like chocolates, candies, perfumes and other beauty products. Some drug stores even produced their own branded household items. They would be able to compound anything from furniture polish to beach, floor cleaners and ginger wine!
While Doctors were required for prescriptions for serious conditions, if you had a common cold or stomach ache, you could also go right to the pharmacist. Just like you do today with over-the-counter drugs. Stomach aches were widespread as refrigeration wasn’t standard and food spoilage was rampant. Treatment for these types of maladies was the most common over-the-counter medicine pharmacists would have developed. And depending on which pharmacy you visited, they might each have their own unique blend and recipe for treatment.
Currently, the museum is open to the public by appointment only. But don’t let that put you off. Deanne (the museum curator and guide) is excellent at getting back to you ASAP to find a time to fit you in. Simply email info@nlpharmacymuseum.com to arrange a time to visit.
The museum is open Tuesday to Friday, but you can always inquire about other times if they have some availability. The museum is located along 488 Water Street in downtown St. John’s. There is parking available right beside the museum if you are planning on arriving by car. But this area of town is super walkable if you’re staying in the area it’s easy enough to walk to the museum.
Lining the Pharmacy shelves are over 2,000 artifacts. Everything you would find inside a 19th-century pharmacy. Antique bottles containing pharmaceutical substances with their original labels face out to the incoming customers. Mortars and pestles, along with scales and tablet presses, are placed on the countertops as if ready to be put to use. Inside the glass cabinets, you can find perfumes and cosmetics right at the front of the shop. There was also a soda fountain, a staple of any good pharmacy back in the 1920s. But what are the BEST reasons to visit the Newfoundland Pharmacy museum? Below are my top 10 exhibit items that make this place so very special!
When you walk inside, facing out on either corner of the shop are two ornate Show globes. Their golden lustre shines in the window when the shades are open. The show globes would have been used to advertise the pharmacy in the same way barbers used striped poles. The golden eagles hold a giant glass orb from the chains held in their beaks. One of the show globes is filled with blue-coloured water, the other with red. The colours inside the globes were used to advertise medical outbreaks in the city. This could be anything from cholera, syphilis or, in our current climate, covid. This ensured that even people who couldn’t read the newspaper were kept abreast of any fast-spreading diseases.
Show globes date back to the 17th century and originated in England. During this time, many people were illiterate, so coloured globes were an easy way to communicate to the general population. The two globes inside the Pharmacy Museum have named the globes ‘Belladonna’ and ‘Hexamina.’ The names come from common ingredients used in ancient pharmaceuticals which are the favourites of the museum curators.
At the front of the shop, you’ll immediately be drawn to the large open chest. Like a giant treasure chest. But instead of gold coins and precious gems, this wooden box contained shimmering glass bottles containing life-saving medical treatments. There are a myriad of different liquids and powders hidden away inside the various wooden compartments. The box contains ointments for burns, itching and other skin conditions. It also included a “clap mixture.” This was because sexually transmitted diseases were prevalent on ships and sailors on leave. There were also lots of tonics to treat upset stomachs, fever and constipation. There were compounds used for toothpaste, detergent and aftershave for daily use on the ship as well.
The “poison” chest was locked and only accessible by a key held by the captain. But not to worry, the poison wasn’t used for nefarious purposes. Poison was actually a common ingredient in many medical concoctions. But if not appropriately used, it would indeed be a hazardous thing for just anyone to get their hands on.
Also provided inside the chest was a copy of the Ship Captain’s Medical Guide from 1946. These guides would be held by the captain and could be used to find medical treatments for whatever is necessary. Ships with under 99 people often would not be required to carry a doctor on board. Therefore, first aid courses administered by St. John’s Ambulance service would help captains train for aiding the sick and injured on-board.
One of my favourite types of medical history is “quack remedies.” A quack is a “fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill.” They often will create unproven, usually ineffective, and sometimes downright dangerous medicines and treatments sold directly to the public without the need for a prescription.
The museum’s collection features ‘Radway’s Ready Relief.’ This was a counter-irritant liniment and carminative tonic. The relief medicine claimed to be a universal “cure-all” to help with everything from rheumatism, sciatic, fever and even nervousness! But the “medicine” proved to be filled with ammonia, capsicum (pepper spray), soap, and the primary ingredient was alcohol, at 27%! So more than likely if you took this remedy, you might just be drunk enough to forget about the pain. In the end, the company was charged $50 for their fraudulent claims, although this didn’t stop others from producing fake medicine.
Dr. Wilson’s Herbine Bitters, from 1880, claimed to make your blood purer! The bitters were said to help with headaches, indigestion and liver problems. But in actuality, it contained more alcohol, which no doubt would have made liver problems even worse.
Dr. Pierce’s Favourite Prescription was made to appeal to the “weaker sex.” Which in the 1800s referred to women. Dr. Pierce (who actually wasn’t a doctor) created this tonic to “regulate the menstrual function and quiet nervous female irritation.” Back then, the treatment of female problems was widely overlooked and not taken seriously. Often they just wanted to silence women rather than actually look into what was causing the pain. While not listed on the label, the tonic contained dangerous substances, including tincture of opium. The Ladies Home Journal even tried to prove this made a fraud after many women who were given the tonic made several complaints. But they were unable to verify the quackery but continued to advocate against it. This resulted in the journal having to pay Dr. Pierce a hefty fine for slander. Despite being right all along!
But there were those creating patent medicines that did the right idea and whose medicine had some real health benefits. Seeing how women were treated by the health industry, Lydia E. Pinkham was well known for making homemade remedies in her kitchen. She created treatments using a mixture of alcohol combined with roots and herbs. She would often distribute these to her friends and family, who would rave about the results. When the financial crisis hit, she decided to patent and sell her remedy as Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. It was marketed to help with menstrual cramps and menopause symptoms. In the 1900s, one of the primary treatments by male doctors for severe menstrual cramps was to surgically remove the ovaries! Which had a 40% mortality rate. So providing an alternative was greatly desired by the public.
Botanical remedies have been used as practical treatments for ages. But she was one first to market them specifically for women. As a woman, she knew what really worked and what didn’t. Pinkham used unicorn root, which helped strengthen the uterine lining preventing the chance of miscarriage. Pleurisy root also helped cure prolapsed uteri. Black cohosh was an anti-inflammatory which helped with menstrual cramping. Lydia became a hero for women and even started a column in a magazine where women could write in with their health issues. Most of these women had been either completely ignored or mistreated by their male doctors and they found refuge in her column. Even though Lydia wasn’t a doctor, she gave voice to these women and acknowledged their pain as real. Which sometimes is exactly what you need to hear.
Back in the 19th and 20th centuries, you’d be surprised to find that many of the treatments and tonics prescribed by doctors and pharmacists contained POISON! One of the museum’s most prized possessions is the Gibson’s linseed, licorice and chloroform lozenges. You heard that right, chloroform! Chloroform was actually very widely used in medical treatments back then as it had sedative qualities. Which we now know is because it is indeed TOXIC and LETHAL in large quantities. Sure, your cough probably felt better when you were unconscious but used in large doses this could prove fatal.
But an even more popular poison than chloroform was belladonna. Belladonna is a plant whose name in Italian means “beautiful lady.” Originally the plant’s berries were juiced and drank by women to enlarge their pupils. This was thought to give them a more beautiful appearance. But the leaves and the berries are very toxic when taken in even small quantities.
Nevertheless, doctors were obsessed with the results they saw from belladonna. And while toxic, it was true that there was some medicinal benefits from the plant. Belladonna contains atropine and scopolamine, which can relax muscle spasms, regulate heart rate and reduce body secretions (specifically in the stomach.) This resulted in hundreds of drugs being laced with belladonna. Most strangely, Belladonna Cigarettes were prescribed to patients who suffered from asthma! The idea was that the smoke, when inhaled, would relieve the spasm in the lungs. Today, smoking to help with asthma is the most backwards idea, but back then, poison was your first course of action!
In a tall glass box, in the front of the shop is a huge stack of old pharmaceutical prescriptions. The museum’s preserved prescriptions are also stored in a huge book that looks like an ancient tomb. While many things have changed over the years, the one thing that remains the same is that doctors’ handwriting is absolutely unreadable. (At least by the general public) But what made reading these prescriptions even more difficult back then was that they were also written in Latin. And unlike today, doctors’ prescriptions were more like a recipe. Not just the name of the pill or cream and the dosage. Doctor’s had to provide the pharmacist with detailed instructions and measurements to prepare medical mixtures using the pharmacy’s base ingredients stored along the walls.
The pharmacist would use a variety of different pieces of equipment to make a simple pill. First, they had to precisely measure out the base ingredients using delicate measuring devices. Then the mortar and pestle were used to mix the ingredients into a paste. Often a percolator would be needed to extract medical compounds from plants. Then the pharmacist would have used the pill-rolling machine or pill cachet to create the individual pills. If the mixture was a liquid, they would have to press their own custom-sized corks to suit the size bottle required. Phew, what an exhausting process!
Cod is perhaps what Newfoundland is best known for. Usually in fish and chips but also in medicinal oils used throughout the centuries. Cod liver oil was first used as far back as the Viking era. But in the 1800 and 1900s, you’d find it more commonly in European countries like Norway as a nutritional supplement. Since the cod liver contains high amounts of vitamin A and D it was commonly taken to during the winter months. In these Nordic countries, cod oil was a good replacement when there was no fresh meat or vegetables to be had.
In the 1920s, Cod Oil was being produced on mass in Newfoundland. It was discovered that the Newfoundland cod produced a richer level of Vitamin A, so it quickly became the prize place to export medicinal cod oil. For the next 50 years, cod oil was a popular supplement, especially given to children to improve their overall health. I have no idea how they got kids to take it, though, since it tastes exactly how it sounds, like drinking a fish! Today the use of cod oil has all but disappeared in favour of other, less foul-tasting vitamins.
Today we have SodaStreamers in our house to get on-tap access to addictive bubbly water. But back in the 1920s, the public would flock to drug stores, pharmacies and general stores to get their fix. But back then, soda wasn’t just drunk for pleasure, it was actually a medical treatment. In the 1850s, pharmacists would prescribe soda to people as cures for lethargy and headaches. Although this might sound off, we all know how sugar can give us a boost of energy, and I know lots of people who drink diet coke when they have a migraine. It’s their secret remedy.
Even after soda lost favour with the doctors as a medical treatment, people had already got a taste for the sweet concoction. So pharmacies continued to serve it as a sweet treat. Brand names like Pepsi and Coke began to export their products worldwide. But Noname varieties, made from flavouring agents, were also a popular choice. Often your local pharmacy would carry their own custom blends or unique mixtures.
Although prescriptions were required for many of the more serious remedies, there were also lots of products that the pharmacist you create from their supplies without requiring a doctor’s note. But you could also get handmade home cleaning and cooking products. Since they made so many of these mixtures, pharmacists would often buy a bulk label dispenser, so they didn’t have to handwrite every label along with the instructions of how to use the product.
These mixtures included “fluid extract cascara aromatic”, which was a laxative for children that contained 20% alcohol. “Parrish’s chemical food” was a tonic given to children, containing iron phosphate, carbonate of soda, carbonate of potassium, ammonia water, powdered cochineal, water, sugar and orange-flower water. Another very popular compound used in the kitchen was “Salt Peter”. Before refrigeration, botulism was very prevalent and extremely deadly. While salting meats would help prevent the meat from going bad, saltpetre was developed to help with the home curing of meats to avoid bacteria growth. But the high levels of Sodium nitrate when taken in large quantities was later proven to result in a significant increase in stomach cancer.
As someone who loves wearing makeup, I really got a kick out of their collections of vintage cosmetics. Many of the products from their collections are from the Jergens company, a name brand we can still see on pharmacy shelves today! The Andrew Jergens Company was established in 1882 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Although many of us know Jergens best for its lotions and soaps, it was best known back in the early 20th century for its perfumes. Lily of the Valley is a smell I so closely associate with my grandmother and mother. I was amazed to find that it was one of the most popular scents in the Jergens collection. But Jergens also produced other perfumes with such exotic fragrances as Carnation Petals, Japan Rose, Lotus Flower, Scotch Thistle and Lilac Frost.
What many people don’t know about early 20th-century makeup products is that they were often made using the byproducts from, (are you ready?) slaughterhouses! Excess tallow from the slaughtered animals was used to make emollients in cosmetics. Everything from lipstick, eyeshadow and soap. Fats from the animals were also used in face creams and moisturizers!
Honestly, the best part about visit the Newfoundland Museum of Pharmacy is the guides. There is so much to see here, and everything is bound to pique your curiosity. Getting to ask the experts all your questions is such a treat, and it really feels like you’re getting some sort of VIP treatment. So if you’re visiting St. John’s sometime soon, be sure to message the museum to make an appointment for your own private tour!
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