Nouf Aloudah, M.S
Clinical Pharmacy Lecturer
King Saud University
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Brief overview of profession roots
Study history from its origin in ancient
Babylonia through the middle of the twentieth
century
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Pharmacy in ancient times
◦ It was practiced in prehistoric times as people
instintinctively 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.
◦ Retailers of drugs were concentrated on certain
street in Babylon by 2111 B.C
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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 in the first pen T’sao
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Pharmacy in ancient times
◦ Egyptian priest, prepared medicines, ebers papyrus
dates from 1900-1100 B.C 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,
suppositories…..)
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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 (airblood, water- phlegm, earth-black bile, fire- yellow
bile)
◦ He surmised that disease was caused by an
imbalance of these bad humors
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Pharmacy in ancient times
◦ Ancient Rome, Galen (A.D 130-200)
◦ Developed principles of preparing and
compounding medicinal agents
◦ Sought to restore humeral balances within a patient
by the use of medicine of opposing qualities
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Pharmacy differentiate during middle ages
◦ Thanks to the Arab world pharmaceutical
knowledge grew considerably
◦ 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
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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
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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
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The Renaissance: Pharmacists Flourished Too
◦ Reexamined the Greek and roman tents
◦ The Swiss physician Pearcelsus (1493-1541)
introduce two ideas disease might be localized in a
specific organ, and some plants contained minute
quantities of active chemical
◦ Emerging of professional associations of
pharmacists
◦ 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
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The Renaissance: Pharmacists Flourished Too
◦ Imbalance of acid and alkaline substances in the
body theory, hompathy
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Pharmacy in the united state: the early days
◦ 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
◦ 4 types of pharmacist: the dispensing physician, the
apothecary shop, the general store, and te
wholesale druggist
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Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth
century
◦ Begin manufacturing And selling chemical in the
late 1700s, basis of establishing pharmaceutical
companies
◦ World was changing from agriculturally based
economy to an industry based one
◦ Manufacturing of drugs using newly discovered
principles of chemistry
◦ Microbial basis of many disease
◦ Smallpox vaccine of Jenner
◦ Isolation of drug morphine from opium
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Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth
century
◦ National pharmacopeia, 1820, in senate chambers
of the U.S. capital in Washington
◦ 1800s states were issuing licenses to apothecaries
◦ 1st was south Carolina
◦ 1821 the Philadelphia college of pharmacy was
founded, 1st pharmacy organization in the united
states , other schools followed quickly
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Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth
century
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Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth
century
◦ In the later half, pharmacy apprentices with several
years’ experience in apothecary shops would attend
school for a limited amount of time before coming
licensed pharmacist
◦ 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
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Pharmacy in the united state: the nineteenth
century
◦ He was rejected as a delegate at the 1871 AphA
convention in St. Louis but time proved him right!
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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
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More and more products were produced
ready to dispense, pharmaceutical industery
become stronger
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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 0 years. The technology, scientific
knowledge and need were present all at once
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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
Thank you