THE HISTORY OF PHARMACY
The History of the Pharmacy and
Pharmacology dates back to the medieval times with priests, both
men and women, who ministered to the sick with religious rites as
well. Many peoples of the world continue the close association of
drugs, medicine, and religion or faith. Specialization first
occurred early in the 9th century in the civilized world around
Baghdad. It gradually spread to Europe as alchemy, eventually
evolving into chemistry as physicians began to abandon beliefs
that were not demonstrable in the physical world. Physicians
often both prepared and prescribed medicines; individual
pharmacists not only compounded prescriptions but manufactured
medicaments in bulk lots for general sale. Not until well into
the 19th century was the distinction between the pharmacist as a
compounder of medicines and the physician as a therapist
generally accepted.
PHARMACY
phar·ma·cy (fär¹me-sê) noun
plural phar·ma·cies
Abbr. phar., Phar., pharm., Pharm.
1. The art of preparing and dispensing drugs.
2. A place where drugs are sold; a drugstore. In
this sense, also called apothecary.
[Middle English farmacie, a purgative, from Old
French, from Medieval Latin pharmacìa, a medicine, from Greek
pharmakeia, use of drugs, from pharmakon, drug.
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the
English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton
Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft
International, Inc. All rights reserved.)
The origin of the word
"pharmacy" is generally ascribed to the Greek pharmakon
("remedy"). It has been suggested that there is a
connection with the egyptian term ph-ar-maki
("bestower of security"),
which the god Thoth, patron of physicians, conferred as
approbation on a ferryman who had managed a safe crossing. The
notion of an Egyptian origin has a certain romantic appeal, but
in all likelihood the word "pharmacy" and its many
cognates derive, like so many other scientific terms, from the
Greek. 
As much as 80,000 years ago, people
of the Paleolithic period were interested in the flora around
them to engrave a variety of plants, bones and deer antlers. It
is fruitless to try to determine when Pharmaceutical practice
started because Pharmacy in a rudimentry form existed before the
word.
Combining different agents, or compounding, was considered an art form practiced by Priests, and Doctors. The first known chemical processes were carried out by the artisans of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. Most of these craftspeople were employed in temples and palaces, making luxury goods for priests and nobles. In the temples, the priests especially had time to speculate on the origin of the changes they saw in the world about them. Their theories often involved magic, but they also developed astronomical, mathematical, and cosmological ideas, which they used in attempts to explain some of the changes that are now considered chemical.
GREEK NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
The first culture to consider these ideas
scientifically was that of the Greeks. From the time of Thales,
about 600 BC, Greek philosophers were making logical speculations
about the physical world rather than relying on myth to explain
phenomena. Thales himself assumed that all matter was derived
from water, which could solidify to earth or evaporate to air.
His successors expanded this theory into the idea that four
elements composed the world: earth, water, air, and fire.
Democritus thought that these elements were composed of atoms,
minute particles moving in a vacuum. Others, especially
Aristotle, believed that the elements formed a continuum of mass
and therefore a vacuum could not exist. The atomic idea quickly
lost ground among the Greeks, but it was never entirely
forgotten. When it was revived during the Renaissance, it formed
the basis of modern atomic theory (see Atom and Atomic Theory).
Today modern pharmacist
deals with complex pharmaceutical remedies far different from the
elixirs, spirits, and powders described in the Pharmacopeia of
London (1618) and the Pharmacopeia of Paris (1639). In the U.S.
today, major medicines, those regarded as having the greatest
therapeutic value, are selected for inclusion in the Pharmacopeia
of the United States, first published in 1820, by a Committee on
Revision on which all colleges of medicine and pharmacy, all
state medical and pharmaceutical associations, and the U.S.
surgeon general are represented. After the drugs have been
chosen, the standards for quality and potency are formulated by
pharmacists and pharmaceutical chemists. Similar criteria for
drugs regarded by the committee as having less therapeutic value
are set forth in the National Formulary, published by the
American Pharmaceutical Association (founded 1852) since 1888.
Any significant variation from pharmacopeia and formulary
standards may be prosecuted by the Food and Drug Administration
under the Pure Food and Drug Acts.
Pharmacy, science of compounding and dispensing
medication; also, an establishment used for such purposes. Modern
pharmaceutical practice includes the dispensing, identification,
selection, and analysis of DRUGS. Pharmacy began to develop as a
profession separate from medicine in the 18th cent., and in 1821
the first U.S. school of pharmacy was established in
Philadelphia.
Pharmacology (fär´me-kòl¹e-jê), study of the changes produced in living animals by DRUGS, chemical substances used to treat and diagnose disease. It is closely related to other scientific disciplines, particularly BIOCHEMISTRY and PHYSIOLOGY. Areas of pharmacologic research include mechanisms of drug action, the use of drugs in treating disease, and drug-induced side effects.
Pharmacy, practice of compounding and dispensing drugs; also the place where such medicinal products are prepared. Pharmacy is an area of materia medica, that branch of medical science concerning the sources, nature, properties, and preparation of drugs. Pharmacists share with the chemical and medical profession responsibility for discovering new drugs and synthesizing organic compounds of therapeutic value. In addition, the community pharmacist, or druggist, is increasingly called upon to give advice in matters of health and hygiene.
Education and Practice
In the U.S., colleges of pharmacy offer 5-year
undergraduate programs leading to the degree of bachelor of
science in the pharmaceutical sciences. All accept students
directly from high school and may grant advanced standing to
college students or graduates. Licenses are granted by states
after the following requirements have been met: graduation from
one of the 72 colleges with programs accredited by the American
Council on Pharmaceutical Education; about 1500 hours of
internship under a registered pharmacist; satisfactory completion
of a state examination. Pharmacists may practice their profession
in a pharmacy located in a hospital, nursing home, or special
area of a drugstore. They may also be employed by a
pharmaceutical company in scientific research or the development
and production of new pharmaceutical products.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD COMPOUNDING PHARMACY?
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The rapid change from hand methods to machine
methods of production that characterized the Industrial
Revolution found a ready application in pharmacy, especially
under the impact of the scientific developments of the nineteenth
century. Phytochemistry and synthetic chemistry created new
derivatives of old drugs and new chemical entities of medicinal
value that strained
the capacity of the individual pharmacy. Large
scale drug manufacturing had its strong hold on society with the
advent of machines and patents.
The progress made by this new industry is demonstrated by the
catalogue of the American firm G.D. Searle, which by the late 1880’s listed 400
fluid extracts, 150 elixirs, 100 syrups, 75 powdered extracts, and 25 tinctures
and other drug forms.
THE DECLINING ART OF THE APOTHECARY
Industrialization had an impact on every aspect of the activity
of the pharmacist. First, it led to the creation of new drugs, drugs that the
individual pharmacist’s own resources could not produce. Second, many drugs that
the individual pharmacist was able to produce could be manufactured more
economically, and in superior quality, by industry. Third, industry assumed
responsibility traditionally vested in the pharmacist for the quality of the
medication. The plethora of proprietary medicines, widely and often blatantly
advertised, deprived the pharmacist of a market for private specialties; it
forced the pharmacist to become a vendor of questionable merchandise; it opened
the way to much broader competition from merchants, grocers and pitchmen than
the pharmacist had previously encountered.
THE COMMUNITY PHARMACY
The nineteenth century did not see the end of the
art of compounding, but the art did give way, however grudgingly,
to new technology. It has been estimated that a "broad
knowledge of compounding" was still essential for 80 percent
f the prescriptions dispensed in the 1920s. 
Although pharmacists increasingly relied on
chemicals purchased from the manufacturer to make up
prescriptions, there still remained much to be done secundum
Artem. They spread their own plasters, prepared pills (of aloes
and myrrh or quinine and opium, for example), prepared powders of
all kinds, and made up confections, conserves, medicated waters,
and perfumes. They put up tinctures (of laudanum, paregoric, and
colchicum) in five gallon demijohns. And they frequently combined
into a single dosage from several medicines, which normally today
would be written and dispensed as separate prescriptions. Further
more, they were often called upon to provide first aid and
medicines for such common ailments as burns, frostbite, colic,
flesh wounds, poisoning, constipation, and diarrhea.
In addition to maintaining a prescription
laboratory, pharmacists usually carried the disliked but
necessary patent and proprietary remedies along with herbs and
locally popular nostrums of their own compounding.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY PHARMACIST
The most notable change in pharmacy in modern times has been the
virtual disappearance of the preparation and compounding of medicines. Whereas
in the 1920s, 80 percent of the prescriptions filled in American pharmacies
required a knowledge of compounding, by the 1940s the number of prescriptions
requiring compounding had declined to 26 percent. As far back as 1971, only 1
percent, or less, of all prescriptions combined two or more active ingredients.
Moreover, the pharmacist’s commitment to maintaining the quality of the drugs
dispensed has been reduced to knowing such facts as the length of shelf life and
the effect of exposure to light and judging the reliability and reputations of
the manufacture.
All this meant that the pharmacist’s education and activities
had to undergo change. At the same time that the scientific education of
pharmacists was steadily becoming more demanding, their role in the provision of
health care was becoming more and more circumscribed. Moreover, they were
increasingly subject to government and institutional requirements that
diminished the importance of the patient-pharmacist relation. And, especially in
the United States and Great Britain, competition from prescription departments
in chain and department stores tended to demean both the role and the dignity of
the pharmacist as a health-care professional. The urban blight that attacked the
neighborhoods was inevitably a threat to the friendly neighborhood pharmacist.
The reaction to these conditions was apparent in
the drop in the production of graduates of American schools of
pharmacy who were planning to go into the field of community
pharmacy. In 1947, about 90 percent of graduates planned to go
into some aspect of community pharmacy; in 1973, that figure had
dropped to 76.6 percent; in
1988 it stood at 57.1 percent.
COMPOUNDING TODAY 
Custom Compounding pharmacies are on the rise.
Physicians, medical institutions and patients are realizing more
then ever the importance of tailoring an individuals medications
to specifically meet there needs. A majority of the Pharmacists
that are going back to compounding are doing so for the love of
the science and interest in the patients well being. Being able
to be in the role of a problem solver opens the doors to
creativity and genius that the medical industry has been eagerly
adopting for the last decade.
Note: Most of the information detailed in this
report was found in the definitive book on the history of
pharmacy; Pharmacy an illustrated history, by David L.
Cowen and William H. Helfand, published byHarry N Abrams, Inc.,
New York. - ISBN 0-8109-1498-0 This is a beautifully
illustrated, 250 page book that was published in 1990.
