Page 3 - Pharmacy History 32 July 2007

Newsletter 8 – 2007
History of pharmacy – A definition
President: Prof. Dr O Lafont Rouen, France
(See the ISHP Website http://www.histpharm.org for the full text of Newsletter 8)
T he activities of our international society are
concentrated on the history of pharmacy, its promotion, its
explanation. This leads to numerous questions by journalists or just curious people, keen on knowing what pharmacy history stands for. For answering these demands, it seems useful for trying to elaborate a definition able to group together the different approaches of our discipline, on which most of us can recognise
its principles. Thus I propose the following definition: The history of pharmacy consists of the knowledge of the past of the art of pharmacy in order to better prepare the future.
It puts together the study of the evolution of medicines and the men, pharmacists or not, discovering, conceiving, making, controlling and distributing those medicines, as well as the patients to whom it is handed out.
Thus pharmacy history approaches scientific and medical theories, pharmaceutical equipments,
medical forms, classes of medicines, therapy, legislation, essential for a regulated profession, magistral and later university teaching, sociology
of the pharmacists, their relations with the related health professions, the society, the charlatans, without forgetting its cultural environment. The study of the personalities who have made the evolution of the discipline or have put their marks on the profession, without falling into the gaps of the hagiography, neither by abandoning the essential critical spirit, the different ways of exercising the profession, the pharmaceutical industry, the hospital pharmacy or clinical biology. All of it is part of the area of its investigations.
The search in pharmacy history relies on the study of various documents according to the period concerned, as formularies, inventories after decease, life stories, pharmacopoeias, apothecaries’ accounts, communities’ registers, regulatory texts, prescription books, invoices,
medical prescriptions, scientific
and technical publications treatises, handbooks, promotional supports, records of scientific societies or production units, popularising works etc. The study of professional objects and their developments constitutes another source of precious information: mortars, different vases, stills, industrial and laboratory equipments, etc. The collections of historical druggists or specialised museums provide at their end, an inestimable documentation. Individual searches being necessarily concentrated on a restricted
period or set of themes, give their contribution to a larger whole
in which they can be integrated.
The synthesis of these punctual observations can allow us draw the basic lines of the evolution. The pharmacy and the medicines are fit in specific periods, are dependant from the scientific context and
the evolution of the society; thus
it is convenient to beware of any anachronism in the interpretation. The history of pharmacy, a discipline of public health, is closely related to the history of medicine, as well as to the history of chemistry, of botany, of natural sciences, of physiology, of hygiene etc. The multidisciplinary aspects of pharmacy are to be considered in its history.
The considered period is very extended as it runs from the neanderthal man, chewing his
purgative leaves, up to the present times, with its genetic and cellular therapy.
An intelligent vulgarisation is also a part of the activities of the historians of pharmacy, as they have to make their works accessible by the larger public, too often over-whelmed by legends and imaginations or even untruth, and to put a rigorous documentation at their disposal.
I hope that this attempt, certainly not perfect, will incite numerous comments and that supplementary points of view by our members, in function of their personal concepts, will enrich this definition. Please send your opinion to the secretary (helmstaedter@govi.de).
The discussion is open and a more precise definition should be finally discussed and agreed upon at our international congress in Seville, where we hope to meet numerous pharmacy historians.
Olivier Lafont, President
It is still not too late to see a bull
fight in Cordoba, Spain.
(See http:||www.histpharm.org)
volume 3 ■ no 32 ■ JULY 2007
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 3