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History of Pharmacy

By: Yoshi - Article Submitted on: 2009-01-06



Pharmacy is the art and science of compounding and dispensing drugs or preparing suitable dosage forms for administration of drugs in man or animals. It includes collection, identification, purification, isolation, synthesis, standardization and quality control of medicinal substances.


* By trial and error, the folk knowledge of the healing properties of certain natural substances grew.
* Great fertile valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, yellow and Yangtze, Indus Rivers were the places of its origin.
* Medical care by two practitioners in Babylonians:
Asipu - Magical healer
Asu - Empirical healer
* Western system of medicine - came from Europe
* Traditional Systems of medicine:
Ayurveda, Siddha ¡V originated in India
Unani (greco-arabic medical system) ¡V came from West asia
* In Greeks Drug or Pharmakon means ¡§Magic spell, remedy or poison¡¨

Origin and Development of Pharmacy:

BEFORE THE DAWN OF HISTORY
Ancient man learned from instinct, from observation of birds and beasts. Cool water, a leaf, dirt, or mud was his first soothing application. By trial, he learned which served him best. Eventually, he applied his knowledge for the benefit of others.

PHARMACY IN ANCIENT BABYLONIA
Babylon, jewel of ancient Mesopotamia, often called the cradle of civilization. It provides the earliest known practice of the art of the apothecary. Practitioners of healing of this era (about 2600 B.C.) were priest, pharmacist and physician, all in one.

PHARMACY IN ANCIENT CHINA
Chinese Pharmacy stems from Shen Nung (about 2000 B.C.), an emperor who sought out and investigated the medicinal value of several hundred herbs. Medicinal plants include podophyllum, rhubarb, ginseng, stramonium, cinnamon bark, ephedra etc.

DAYS OF THE PAPYRUS EBERS
"Papyrus Ebers" (1500 B.C.) is the best known and most important pharmaceutical record. It is a collection of 800 pre scriptions mentioning 700 drugs.

THEOPHRASTUS - FATHER OF BOTANY
Theophrastus (about 300 B.C.), was the greatest early Greek philosophers and natural scientists, is called the "father of botany." His observations and writings dealing with the medical qualities and peculiarities of herbs are unusually accurate, even in the light of present knowledge.

TERRA SIGILLATA - AN EARLY "TRADEMARKED" DRUG
Man learned early of the prestigious advantage of trademarks as a means of identification of source and of gaining customers' confidence. One of the first therapeutic agents to bear such a mark was Terra Sigillata (Sealed Earth), a clay tablet originating on the Mediterranean island of Lemnos before 500 B.C.

DIOSCORIDES - A SCIENTIST LOOKS AT DRUGS
Pedanios Dioscorides (first century A.D.), contributed mightily to such a transition in Pharmacy. He observed, recorded and spread the excellent rules for collection of drugs, their storage and use. His texts were considered basic science as late as the sixteenth century.

GALEN - EXPERIMENTER IN DRUG COMPOUNDING
He practiced and taught both Pharmacy and Medicine in Rome. His principles of preparing and compounding medicines ruled in the Western world for 1,500 years; and his name still is associated with that class of pharmaceuticals compounded by mechanical means - galenicals. He was the originator of the formula for a cold cream.

DAMIAN AND COSMAS - PHARMACY'S PATRON SAINTS
Twinship of the health professions, Pharmacy and Medicine, is portrayed by Damian, the apothecary, and Cosmas, the physician.

MONASTIC PHARMACY
During the Middle Ages remnants of the Western knowledge of Pharmacy and Medicine were preserved in the monasteries (fifth to twelfth centuries). Manuscripts from many islands were translated or copied for monastery libraries. The monks gathered herbs and raised them in their own herb gardens. These they prepared according to the art of the apothecary for the benefit of the sick and injured. Gardens such as these still may be found in monasteries in many countries.

THE FIRST APOTHECARY SHOPS
The Arabs separated the arts of apothecary and physician, establishing in Bagdad late in the eighth century the first privately owned drug stores. They preserved much of the Greco-Roman wisdom developing with the aid of their natural resources syrups, confections, conserves, distilled waters and alcoholic liquids.

AVICENNA - THE "PERSIAN GALEN"
Among the brilliant contributors to the sciences of Pharmacy and Medicine during the Arabian era was one genius who seems to stand for his time - the Persian, Ibn Sina (about 980-1037 A.D.), called Avicenna by the Western world. He was a Pharmacist, poet, physician, philosopher and diplomat. He gave contribution to the sciences of pharmacy and medicine by his pharmaceutical teachings.

SEPARATION OF PHARMACY AND MEDICINE
In European countries, public pharmacies began to appear in the 17th century. In Sicily and southern Italy, pharmacy was separated from Medicine.

THE FIRST OFFICIAL PHARMACOPOEIA
The idea of a pharmacopoeia with official status, to be followed by all apothecaries, originated in Florence. The Nuovo Receptario, originally written in Italian, was published and became the legal standard for the city-state in 1498.

THE SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES OF LONDON
In 1617, Francis Bacon (philosopher-politician) formed a separate company known as the "Master, Wardens and Society of the Art and Mystery of the Apothecaries of the City of London". This was the first organization of pharmacists in the Anglo-Saxon world.

LOUIS HEBERT - APOTHECARY TO NEW FRANCE (CANADA)
Young Parisian Apothecary ¡¥Louis Hebert¡¦ builds New France's first settlement, the Habitation, at Port Royal (Nova Scotia, Canada). Hebert looked after the health of the pioneers, cultivated native drug plants, and supervised the gardens.

THE MARSHALL APOTHECARY
Christopher Marshall, an Irish immigrant, established an apothecary shop in Philadelphia in 1729. During 96 years, this pioneer pharmaceutical enterprise became a leading retail store, nucleus of large-scale chemical manufacturing; a "practical" training school for pharmacists; an important supply depot during the Revolution. Christopher earned the title of "The fighting Quaker" during the Revolution.

FIRST HOSPITAL IN COLONIAL AMERICA
Colonial America's first hospital (Pennsylvania) was established in Philadelphia in 1751. The first Hospital Pharmacy began in 1752. First Hospital Pharmacist was Jonathan Roberts; but it was his successor, John Morgan, whose practice as a hospital pharmacist (1755-56), and whose impact upon Pharmacy and Medicine influenced changes that were to become of importance to the development of professional pharmacy in North America.

SCHEELE - GREATEST OF THE PHARMACISTS-CHEMISTS
During his few short years, Carl Wilhelm Scheele gave to the world discoveries that have brought its people incalculable advantages. He made thousands of experiments, discovered oxygen, chlorine, prussic acid, tartaric acid, tungsten, molybdenum, glycerin, nitroglycerin, and countless other organic compounds that enter into today's daily life, industry, health, and comfort.

CRAIGIE - AMERICA'S FIRST APOTHECARY GENERAL
First man to hold the rank of a commissioned pharmaceutical officer in an American army was the Bostonian apothecary, Andrew Craigie. His duties included procurement, storage, manufacture, and distribution of the Army's drug requirements. He also developed an early wholesaling and manufacturing business.

AMERICAN PHARMACY BUILDS ITS FOUNDATIONS
Faced with two major threats; deterioration of the practice of pharmacy, and a discriminatory classification by the University of Pennsylvania medical faculty, the pharmacists of Philadelphia formed an association, which became The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy; a school of pharmacy; and a self-policing board. Sixty-eight pharmacists signed the Constitution of the first pharmaceutical association in the United States.

THE SHAKERS AND MEDICINAL HERBS
First U.S. industry in medicinal herbs was carried on by the United Society of Believers, commonly known as the Shakers (in 1820).

THE AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION
Under leadership of its first President, Daniel B. Smith, and first Secretary, William Procter, Jr., the twenty delegates launched The American Pharmaceutical Association and opened membership to "All pharmaceutists and druggists" of good character who subscribed to its Constitution and to its Code of Ethics. The Association continues to serve Pharmacy today.

EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN PHARMACY MEET
European and American Pharmacy groups met for the first time, at the Second International Congress of Pharmacy in Paris, France in 1867.

THE FATHER OF AMERICAN PHARMACY
William Procter, Jr., graduated from The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1837, was a leader in founding The American Pharmaceutical Association; served that organization as its first secretary; later, as its president.


Yoshi


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