NOTE FOR IN-HOUSE LECTURE ONLY (PM Mohd Makmor Bakry, PhD, RPh)
Bachelor of Pharmacy (Hons.) Programme
Faculty of Pharmacy, UKM
HISTORY OF PHARMACY
History of Pharmacy in General
Reference: "Great Moments in Pharmacy" By George A. Bender Paintings By Robert A. Thom.
Copyright ©Parke, Davis & Company 1965
BEFORE THE DOWN OF HISTORY
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Ancient man learned from instinct, from observation of birds and beasts.
Cool water, a leaf, dirt, or mud was applied for soothing purpose (crude methods).
By trial, they learned which served the best.
Eventually, the knowledge was applied for the benefit of others.
PHARMACY IN ANCIENT BABYLON
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Babylon, jewel of ancient Mesopotamia, the earliest known record of practice of the
art of the apothecary (synonymous to ‘pharmacy’).
About 2600 B.C., practitioners of healing were priest, pharmacist and physician, all
in one.
Medical texts on clay tablets record first the symptoms of illness, the prescription
and directions for compounding, then an invocation to the gods.
Ancient Babylonian methods find counterpart in today’s modern pharmaceutical,
medical, and spiritual care of the sick.
PHARMACY IN ANCIENT CHINA
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About 2000 B.C., Chinese Pharmacy stems from Emperor Shen Nung who sought out
and investigated the medicinal value of several hundred herbs, barks and roots.
He reputed to have tested many of them on himself, and to have written the first
Pen T-Sao, or native herbal, recording 365 drugs.
Still worshiped by native Chinese drug guilds as their patron god,
“Pa Kua,” a mathematical designed symbolizing creation and life.
PAPYRUS EBERS
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About 2900 B.C., Egyptian medicine was best known and most important
pharmaceutical record is the “Papyrus Ebers” (1500 B.C.)
Papyrus Ebers, a collection of 800 prescriptions, mentioning 700 drugs.
Pharmacy (House of Life) in ancient Egypt was conducted by two or more echelons:
gatherers and preparers of drugs, and “chiefs of fabrication,” or head pharmacists.
THEOPHRASTUS – FATHER OF BOTANY
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Theophrastus (about 300 B.C.), 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.
THE ROYAL TOXICOLOGIST – MITHRIDATES VI
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Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (about 100 B.C.), though he battled Rome for a
lifetime, found time to make not only the art of poisoning, but also the art of
preventing and counteracting poisoning.
Unhesitatingly, he used himself as well as his prisoners as “guinea pigs” on which to
test poisons and antidotes.
His famed formula of alleged pan-antidotal (universal antidote) powers,
‘Mithridatum’.
TERRA SIGILLATA
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One of the first therapeutic agents (astringent) to bear such a trademark was Terra
Sigillata (Sealed Earth), a clay tablet originating on the Mediterranean island of
Lemnos before 500 B.C.
One day each year, clay was dug from a pit on a Lemnian hillside in the presence of
governmental and religious dignitaries.
Washed, refined, rolled to a mass of proper thickness, the clay was formed into
pastilles and impressed with an official seal by priestesses, then sun-dried.
DIOSCORIDES – A SCIENTIST LOOKS AT DRUGS
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Pedanios Dioscorides (first century A.D.), contributed mightily to such a transition in
Pharmacy.
In order to study materia medica, Dioscorides accompanied the Roman armies
throughout the known world.
He recorded what he observed, promulgated 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
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Galen (130-200 A.D.) 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.
Class of pharmaceuticals compounded by mechanical means – GALENicals.
He was the originator of the formula for a cold cream, essentially similar to that
known today.
MONASTIC PHARMACY
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During the Middle Ages remnants of the Western knowledge of Pharmacy and
Medicine were preserved in the monasteries (5th to 12th centuries).
These scientists are known to have been taught in the cloisters as early as the
seventh century.
Manuscripts from many islands were translated or copied for monastery libraries.
ISLAM & PHARMACY
“The professional who is specialized in the collection of all drugs, choosing the very best of
each simple or compound, and in the preparation of good remedies from them following the
most accurate methods and techniques as recommended by experts in the healing arts.”
Abu al-Rayan al-Biruni, c. 1045 CE
FIRST APOTHECARY SHOPS
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The Arabs separated the arts of apothecary and physician, establishing in Baghdad
late in the eighth century (754) the first privately owned drug stores.
They preserved much of the Greco-Roman wisdom, added to it, developing with the
aid of their natural resources syrups, confections, conserves, distilled waters and
alcoholic liquids.
When the Moslems swept across Africa, Spain and southern France, they carried
with them a new pattern of Pharmacy which western Europe soon assimilated.
IBN SINA– THE “PERSIAN GALEN”
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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.).
Pharmacist, poet, physician, philosopher and diplomat, Ibn Sina was an intellectual
giant, a favorite of Persian princes and rulers.
His pharmaceutical teachings were accepted as authority in the West until the 17th
century; and still are dominant influences in the Orient.
ARABIAN PHARMACY TEACHING
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During the period from about 700 A.D. until 1300 A.D., the flowering of all branches
of knowledge was magnificent.
Many works were written about medicine, health and disease, pharmacy, and
materia medica—most of which are extant, but in Persian.
Two materia medica (the Al Kindi and Al-Samarqandi) brought the practice of
herbalism to a high degree of skill.
SEPARATION OF PHARMACY & MEDICINE
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About 1240 A.D. in Sicily and southern Italy, Pharmacy was separated from
Medicine.
Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, who was Emperor of Germany as well as King of Sicily,
was a living link between Oriental and Occidental worlds.
At his palace in Palermo, he presented subject Pharmacists with the first European
edict completely separating their responsibilities from those of Medicine, and
prescribing regulations for their professional practice.
FIRST PHARMACOPOEIA
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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.
It was the result of collaboration of the Guild of Apothecaries and the Medical
Society – one of the earliest manifestations of constructive interprofessional
relations.
THE PHARMACOPOEIA COMES OF AGE
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The first “United States Pharmacopoeia” (1820) was the work of the medical
profession.
In 1877, the “U.S.P.” was in danger of dissolution due to the lack of interest of the
medical profession.
Dr. Edward R. Squibb, manufacturing pharmacist as well as physician, took the
problem to The American Pharmaceutical Association convention. Pharmacists
formed a “Committee on Revision” chaired by hospital pharmacist Charles Rice,
assisted by pharmacist-educator Joseph P. Remington, and by Dr. Squibb, their
indefatigable collaborator.
History of Pharmacy Services in Malaysia
Reference: https://www.pharmacy.gov.my/v2/en/content/our-history.html (3 May 2013)
Introduction of Pharmacy to Malaysia
Pharmacy service came into existence in the country since 1951 with the enforcement of the
Registration of Pharmacist Act 1951, Poisons Act 1952 and Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. The
primary task of the pharmacy service prior to independence was confined to the
procurement, storage and distribution of drugs from the United Kingdom through the Crown
Agents.
Earlier Pharmaceutical Services & Pharmaceutical Chemist
Under the Second Malaysia Plan (1961-1965), the Government Pharmaceutical Laboratories
and Stores (GPLS) Complex was set up in Petaling Jaya in 1969. This was the landmark
development in pharmaceutical service in the country. It had successfully provided a reliable
source of cheap, cost-effective and good quality pharmaceuticals for the medical and health
programmes of the Ministry of Health, which emphasizing on the rural health service.
Pharmaceutical Chemistry Division was officically established in 1969 to cater for the rising
needs of the pharmaceutical services. Pharmacists then were known as Pharmaceutical
Chemistry Superintendant. The division was officially named the Pharmaceutical Services
Division on 1st January 1974 in recognition of the expanding role of the pharmaceutical
service in the health sector.
Pharmaceutical Control
The Pharmacy Enforcement Unit was formed on 1st January 1976 under the Pharmaceutical
Services Division to carry out the enforcement of legislations pertaining to pharmacy and the
pharmaceutical trade in the country in a more efficient approach.
In the 1970's, the scope of the service was extended to cover the quality assurance of
pharmaceuticals in the country. The National Pharmaceutical Control Laboratory, which was
later renamed as the National Pharmaceutical control Bureau was set up in October 1978
under the Second Malaysia Plan to perform this regulatory responsibility.
The promulgation of the Control of Drugs and Cosmetics Regulations in June 1984 marked
the dawn of the regulatory era in Malaysia. This laid the groundwork necessary towards
moulding a systematic pharmaceutical regulatory system in Malaysia. In January 1985, the
Drug Control Authority (DCA) was established under the chairmanship of the Director
General of Health Malaysia, with a mission of ensuring, quality, safety and efficacy of
pharmaceutical products prior to marketing. To accomplish this goal, the DCA through its
Secretariat, the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau (NPCB) undertakes the regulatory
functions such as product registration, sample analysis, inspection and licensing, postmarketing surveillance and ADR monitoring.
Pharmacist and Practices in Malaysia
The Pharmacy Board established under the Registration of Pharmacists Act 1951 admitted
20 pharmacists into its register in 1952. At the time of independence in 1957 there were 23
registered pharmacists in the public sector. Due to the lack of pharmacists and the urgent
need to provide and maintain a basic pharmaceutical service in public hospitals and health
clinics, the Dispenser's (now Pharmacy Assistant) Training School was set up as a stop gap
measure.
The shortage of pharmacists continues to affect the expansion of pharmacy service in the
country in particular, the provision of clinical and pharmaceutical care services to patients.
As a long term measure, the compulsory service was introduced in the public sector,
through the amendment to the regulations of the Registration of Pharmacists Act 1951 in
2003. The Registration of Pharmacists (Amendment) 2003 was enforced on 2nd September
2004.