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Pharmacy History Session – PAC 2009
Professional standards and ethics
in Australian pharmacy origins
development and prospects
Gregory Haines
The keynote speaker at the History Session at the 2009 PAC Conference held in Sydney this October was Dr Gregory Haines, pharmacist and historian.
Dr Haines finished pharmacy at Sydney University in 1961. He holds a PhD in history from the University of New South Wales where, as a post-doctoral research fellow, he prepared his first pharmacy history. He has written three more books on Australian pharmacy history, a number of entries on pharmacists for the Australian Dictionary of Biography, articles on pharmacy and industry for the Australian Encyclopaedia, and lectured on pharmacy history at Sydney University.
Dr Haines is regarded as the doyen of Australian pharmacy historians and has recently retired as History Master at St Ignatius College, Riverview, in Sydney.
Dr Haines addressed the question of the history of standards in pharmacy, while pharmacy ethics was discussed by Dr Betty Chaar, who completed her PhD in this subject.
What do we mean by
a standard?
Usually people understand one or more of a measure of quality of a product and its components and preparation, a demonstrable measure of performance or competence, and personal standards or integrity in a variety of fields, including relations with fellow and allied professionals, and respect and care for fellow workers and staff, including privacy. In many instances, especially with regards health and food, as well as potentially dangerous processes and devices, standards are prescribed and specified by law. Many groups and organisations, such as professions, set down standards in codes of
ethics or expectations or codes or protocols or mission statements.
These imply moral responsibility and a significant breach could result in the disciplining or expulsion of the individuals involved for professional misconduct. Standards of this sort are not the same as desiderata, aspirations and challenges, such as Christ’s exhortation to his followers, ‘be ye perfect’. They are obligatory.
Recently, in pharmacy, discussion of standards has centred on completion of mandated continuing professional
development as a condition for continuing right to practice. This is but the latest in a line of efforts to describe and maintain standards.
Formulary and pharmacopoeias are among the earliest expressions of standards with drugs, many of the earliest being secret, including secret poisons. Gradually these became public and then, via the blessing of a ruler, government or respected group or organisation, ‘official’.
Table 1: Selected Pharmacopoeias – Year of first publication
Nuremburg Pharmacopoeia, (Germany) 1546
London Pharmacopoeia, 1618
Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, 1699
United States Pharmacopoeia 1820
Dublin Pharmacopoeia 1807
British Pharmacopoeia 1864
volume 5 no 37 NOVEMBER 2009
Pharmacy History Australia 7