Pharmacy history
Pharmacy in ancient times
 It was practiced in prehistoric times as people used the water,
plants and earth around them for soothing compresses on
wounds and ailments.
 As civilization dawned in ancient Mesopotamia (2600 B.C.),
Babylonian healing practitioners combined the responsibilities
of priest, physician, and pharmacist, some oldest pharmacy
records are found in Sumerian clay cuneiform tablets that date
about 200 B.C.
Pharmacy in ancient times
 An ancient china (circa 200 B.C), legend tells that emperor
Shen Nung investigated the medical properties of hundreds of
herbs, and he recorded 365 native herbal drugs
 Retailers of drugs were concentrated on certain street in
Babylon by 2111 B.C
Pharmacy in ancient times
 Egyptian priest, prepared medicines. The Ebers papyrus dates
from 1900-1100 B.C . it contains 800 prescriptions using 700
drugs, of particular note in the papyrus is inclusion of quantities
of substances.
 Many modern dosage forms are referred to in the Ebers
papyrus (gargles, snuffs, inhalations, lotions, ointments…..)
Pharmacy in ancient times
 Ancient Greece lived the father of botany, Theophrastus (300
B.C) , his observations about the medicinal qualities of herbs
have proven uncannily accurate
 Hippocrates of Cos formulated the theory of the four human
that parallel the four elements (air- blood, water- phlegm,
earth-black bile, fire- yellow bile)
 He surmised that disease was caused by an imbalance of these
bad humors
Pharmacy in ancient times
 Ancient Rome, Galen (A.D 130-200) .
 Developed principles of preparing and compounding medicinal
agents and the word Galenicals is stilled used to refer to
medicinal agents derived from natural sources that are prepared
mechanically.
 Sought to restore humeral balances within a patient by the use
of medicine of opposing qualities.
Pharmacy differentiate during middle ages
 Pharmaceutical knowledge and the number of drugs available
grew considerably during the Middle Ages, thanks primarily to
the Arabic world.
 Pharmacy as a separate activity began to develop and privately
owned pharmacies were established in Islamic lands.
 First known apothecary shop was opened in Baghdad in the 18th
century, and the Muslims carried this concept into Europe
during wars and other excursions into Africa, Spain, southern
France
Pharmacy differentiate during middle ages
 Ibn Sina (circa 980-1037)- Avicenna- intellectual giant, he was
a physician, poet, philosopher, diplomat, companion of Persian
princes and rulers
 His Canon Medicinae brought together the best knowledge of
the Greeks and Arabs into a single medical text
Pharmacy differentiate during middle ages
 German emperor Frederick II issued an edict in about 1240 that
legally separated pharmacy from medicine in southern Italy and
Sicily. Known as the Magna Carta of Pharmacy, the edict
contained three decrees:
1- The pharmaceutical profession was to be separated from the
medical profession
2- The pharmaceutical profession should be supervised officially
3- pharmacists should take an oath to prepare drugs reliably,
according to skilled art, and in a uniform suitable quality.
The Renaissance: Pharmacists Flourished Too
 Following the middle ages, many parts of European society Re-
examined the Greek and roman tents
 The Swiss physician Parcelsus (1493-1541) introduce two
ideas :
1- disease might be localized in a specific organ
2-some plants contained minute quantities of active chemical
 Emerging of professional associations of pharmacists
The Renaissance: Pharmacists Flourished Too
 In England, Pharmacist was under jurisdiction of Guild of
grocers, which monopolized the drug and spice trade
 King James I granted a charter recognizing the society of
apothecaries of London
 Other contemporaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries believed that disease was produced through an
Imbalance of acid and alkaline substances in the body .
The Renaissance: Pharmacists Flourished Too
 The theory of iatrochemistry held that food was transformed by
saliva and by a ferment secreted by the pancreas and that blood
was made life-giving through ferments from the gall bladder
and lymph glands.
 Homeopathy, or treatment of disease with substances that
produced similar symptoms as did the disease, also has its
origins in the Renaissance period.
Pharmacy in the united state: the early days
 With the Increased recognition and application of the scientific
method in the 1700s, modern pharmacy emerged.
 Progress in organic, inorganic chemistry, immunology, and
chemotherapy began to change pharmacy from empirically
based profession to a knowledge based one
Pharmacy in the united state: the early days
 4 types of pharmacist could be found in the Americas by the
18th century: the dispensing physician, the apothecary shop, the
general store, and the wholesale druggist.
 Dispensing physicians became less and less common, dying out
around the end of the nineteenth century.
Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth century
 In 1820 an important meeting took place in the senate
chambers of the U.S Capitol in Washington.
 1800s states were issuing licenses to apothecaries
 1st licenses to apothecaries was south Carolina
 1821 the Philadelphia college of pharmacy (PCP) was founded,
1st pharmacy organization in the united states , other schools
followed quickly
Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth century
 Begin manufacturing And selling chemical in the late 1700s, this
was the basis of establishing pharmaceutical companies
 World was changing from agriculturally based economy to an
industry based one and pharmacy found itself caught in this
shift.
 Manufacturing of some drugs using newly discovered principles
of chemistry
Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth century
 Koch’s postulates had clearly proven the Microbial basis of many
disease
 The Smallpox vaccine of Jenner was proving that one could be
made immune to the ravages of infectious disease.
 Isolation of drug morphine from opium by Friedrich Sertarner.
Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth century
 In the later half of the nineteenth century, pharmacy apprentices
with several years’ experience in apothecary shops would attend
school for a limited amount of time before coming licensed
pharmacist
Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth century
 A physician chemist at the university of Michigan changed that.
Albert Perscott believed that the scientific foundation of
pharmacy should be laid first through didactic educational
programs and only then should the student attempt to learn the
practical side of the trade through an apprenticeship .
 Prescott went up against organized pharmacy with his beliefs and
for it He was rejected as a delegate at the 1871 AphA convention
in St. Louis but time proved him right!
Twentieth century pharmacy: a business or a profession
 … if the preparation of medicine is taken from the apothecary
and he becomes merely the dispenser of them, his business is
shorn of half its dignity and importance, and he relapses into a
simple shopkeeper”
W. Procter, chief problem for 20th century
 More and more products were produced ready to dispense,
pharmaceutical industry become stronger
Twentieth century pharmacy: a business or a profession
 Problems with adulteration and quackery caused the united states
congress to pass the pure food and drug act in 1906.
 In Germany, new discoveries in organic chemistry were making
possible the increased rational design of drugs
Twentieth century pharmacy: a business or a profession
 After world war II, the military had an urgent need for
penicillin, which had lain dormant in Fleming's laboratory for
10 years. The technology, scientific knowledge and need were
present all at once and post-world war II pharmaceutical
industry began producing drugs that were much more powerful
and specific than those available previously.
Twentieth century pharmacy: a business or a profession
 The art of compounding rapidly become less important.
 The knowledge about the drugs, their mechanisms of actions,
and their side effects become much more complicated.
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