Day 4 Visiting Historical Sites (Inner Journey)

There is A TON of History to learn about here in NOLA

Today, we went on tours through the St. Louis Cathedral, The Ursuline Convent, and the Pharmacy Museum. We learned about Henriette Delille, an African American free woman who helped people in need in the surrounding area. She was the founder of the Holy Family after she was denied the opportunity to become a sister of the Ursuline Convent due to her skin color. Saint Pope John Paul II declared her to be a "Servant of God", so she was recognized as such and in 2010 she was declared Venerable. We learned about the sisters of Ursuline Convent and how they helped educate young women as well as helping in the royal hospital as some of the first nurses. The Ursuline convent was first moved into in 1752, and it survived the fire of 1788 that wiped out more than eighty percent of New Orleans. Thomas Jefferson himself assured the sisters of the convent that their property and their rights under the constitution are guaranteed. The convent's staircase is one of the only floating staircases left in New Orleans (meaning there is no support holding it up). The clock that sits in the convent was brought to Texas by some sisters that moved, and it was among the debris from the hurricane that hit Galveston Texas many years ago. Luckily it was salvaged, however the sisters died in that same hurricane. The pharmacy museum is where the first licensed individual in the country began to practice medicine. We learned that basically anyone in New Orleans could practice medicine and back in the late 1800's-early 1900's there weren't any laws controlling medical practice. Back in those days, they were using things like cocaine, heroine, cyanide, etc in medications to purge the disease out of the body. During the times when yellow fever ran rapid, they used mercury to try and fix things and it wasn't working, What did in fact work were the fires that they lit that created smoke which drove the mosquitos who were spreading the disease away. They did not know/believe in things like hand washing, changing needles after each individual use, and the measures that they took to try and cure or fix problems were horrible to the body that you were bound to die regardless. The life expectancy was low, and families named multiple children the same name hoping that one of them would survive. Even though prohibition was happening, people were getting prescriptions for alcohol so they were still drinking.