History Of Pharmacy

Pharmacy has become an integral part of our lives. Nearly half of all 300 million Americans take at least one prescription drug daily, accounting for $250 billion per year in sales in the US alone. And this number doesn't even include the over-the-counter medications or health aids that are taken. How did this practice become such an essential part of our lives and our health? A Brief History of Pharmacy: Humanity's Search for Wellness aims to answer that question. As this short overview of the practice shows, the search for well-being through the ingestion or application of natural products and artificially derived compounds is as old as humanity itself. From the Mesopotamians to the corner drug store, Bob Zebroski describes how treatments were sought, highlights some of the main victories of each time period, and shows how we came to be people who rely on drugs to feel better, to live longer, and look younger. This accessible survey of pharmaceutical history is essential reading for all students of pharmacy.

Originally published in 1995, The History of Pharmacy is a critical bibliography of selected information on the history of pharmacy. The book is designed to guide students and academics through the history of science and technology. Topics range from medicine, chemical technology and the economics and business of pharmacy to pharmacy’s influence in the arts. The bibliography includes an exhaustive selection of primary and secondary sources and is arranged chronologically. This book will be of interest to those researching in the area of the history of science and technology and will appeal to students and academic researchers alike.

Making Medicines is a concise, chronological discussion of the history of therapeutics and pharmacy from the Egyptians through to the present day. It focuses on the discovery and uses of medicines to treat illness through the ages, and the evolving role of the pharmacist. Each chapter is contributed by an expert in the period or field, and illustrates how wider social, political and economic developments have influenced drug development and shaped pharmacy practice.The book has two colour-plate sections illustrating how pharmacy has developed over the centuries. Numerous photographs are also included in the text.Written by an expert in the field, this book will appeal to pharmacists and pharmacy students, as well as to other healthcare practitioners and medical historians.

Examine a previously unexplored aspect of Civil War military medicine! Here is the first comprehensive examination of pharmaceutical practice and drug provision during the Civil War. While numerous books have recounted the history of medicine in the Civil War, little has been said about the drugs that were used, the people who provided and prepared them, and how they were supplied. This is the first book to provide detailed discussion of the role of pharmacy. Among the topics covered in this essential volume are the duties of medical purveyors, the role of the hospital steward, and the nature and state of medical substances commonly used in the 1860s. This last subject would become a matter of considerable controversy and ultimately cost William Hammond, the brilliant and innovative Surgeon General, his career in the Union Army. This richly detailed book shows why the South found drug provision especially difficult and describes the valiant efforts of Confederate sympathizers to run the Union blockade in order to smuggle in their precious cargoes. You’ll also learn about the scurrilous privateers who were out to make a personal fortune at the expense of both the Union and the Confederacy. In addition, Civil War Pharmacy illuminates the systematic effort of pharmacists, physicians, and botanists to derive from Southern plants adequate substitutes for foreign substances that were difficult, if not impossible, to obtain in the Confederacy. In this painstakingly researched yet highly readable book, Michael A. Flannery, co-author of the critically acclaimed America’s Botanico-Medical Movements: Vox Populi, examines all these topics and more. In addition, he assesses the relative successes and failures of the pharmaceutical aspect of health care at the time—successes and failures that affected every man in army camps and in the field. Civil War Pharmacy: A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therapeutics for the Union and Confederacy includes photographs, helpful tables and figures, and six appendices that make hard-to-find information easy to access and understand. You’ll find: the Standard Supply Table of Indigenous Remedies (1863) Circular No. 6 from the Surgeon General’s Office (May 4, 1863), calling for the removal of calomel and tartar emetic from the Supply Table instructions on reading and filling a 19th century prescription—with a glossary of Latin phrases and approximate measures, an excerpt from The Hospital Steward’s Manual, and more! a circular from the Confederate Medical Purveyor’s Office a Materia Medica for the South: A list of medicinal substances from Porcher’s Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests common prescriptions of the Civil War period as well as basic syrups of the era with monographs on their principal substances: alcohol, cinchona, hydrargyrum (mercury), opium, and quinine Packed with more information than can be listed here and, just as importantly, presented in a reader-friendly manner, this is a book that no one interested in Civil War history—or pharmacy history—should be without!

Essays reprinted from the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association series commemorating the sesquicentennial of the American Pharmaceutical Association.

This collection of photographs records the history of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and marks the fact that the development of photography and pharmacy are closely linked. The pictures illustrate different periods of development in pharmacy and are grouped accordingly.