The Hugh Mercer Apothecary is a reconstruction of the pharmacy and medical office operated by Scottish-born physician Hugh Mercer from 1761 until he left to join the Continental Army in 1775. Mercer was a close friend of George Washington — they had served together in the French and Indian War — and his shop was a social hub in colonial Fredericksburg as much as a medical facility.
The museum focuses on 18th-century medical practice with admirable frankness: the guided tours don't shy away from demonstrating exactly what colonial medicine involved, including the leeches, the mercuric compounds, and the various procedures that are now understood to have been as likely to kill a patient as cure them. The interpreters are well-informed and the exhibit cases are full of period medical instruments and apothecary vessels. It's one of the more entertaining history museums in Fredericksburg precisely because the subject matter is so grimly fascinating.