Page 3 - Pharmacy History 33 November 2007

Sister dispensers – Australian trained nurses in pharmacy
by Dr Kirsty Harris
World War I was a catalyst for changes in the medical and associated professions. Dispensing drugs became one area open for contest between trained and untrained pharmacists, both in Australia and overseas with the Australian Imperial Force. It was an important military activity.
The British medical war historian, Sir W.G. Macpherson noted in the British Official Medical History, ‘medical and surgical supplies are
to the Army Medical Service what ammunition is to the fighting troops’. While Gregory Haines’ Pharmacy in Australia acknowledges the growing role of civilian women in pharmacy around the turn of the twentieth century, the contribution of trained nurses to this field has little recognition. This may in
part be due to the official medical war historian, A.G. Butler, only describing the role of those men employed as army dispensers. In addition, military nursing historians such as Jan Bassett, Rupert Goodman and Marianne Barker have not included any information about
this work. This hides the truth of those who often did the work, and reinforces the gendered notion of medicine and auxiliary fields at this time. This paper therefore outlines the role and training of women, particularly female nurses, in the role of dispensing drugs. In addition, it examines the work, both in Australia and overseas, of those nurses in
the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) who took on the role of dispenser. This adds to our knowledge of the roles and skills of
Australian Nurses 1915, ready to embark for the Middle East..
World War I (WWI) military nurses and to our awareness of the work
of women in the early part of the twentieth century.
It is difficult to know what authors mean when their texts mention ‘dispensing’. As I will explain, it is likely that it meant compounding drugs and handing them out, not the services of a fully trained pharmacist. At the outbreak of WWI, in all Australian states, pharmacists had
to undergo a compulsory system of education and examination before acceptance on the Pharmaceutical Register. This system embraced
an apprenticeship ranging from
three to four years; attendance at compulsory lectures at either a University or College; and passing the prescribed theoretical and practical examinations. However, there was no clear purpose or policy for the system of medical supply in the Australian Army and the creation of the Pharmaceutical Service.
This was a cause of confusion, and allowed army nurses the opportunity to dispense drugs and medicines as well as various medical and surgical dressings and sundries chemists usually supplied.
Historical background
From the advent of trained nursing in Australia some nurses dispensed medicines to patients. For example, St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney in 1873 did not employ resident medical
staff and thus the Sisters managed
the hospital with wardsmen working in the male wards. The nurses also mixed their own compounds and dispensed their own medicines. By the 1890s, there were other hospitals where this practice occurred. In this era, Adelaide Children’s Hospital nurse Helena Abbott gained substantial drug experience as she worked in the dispensary and ‘from 10 o’clock until 1 o’clock I did all the dispensing for Outpatients’. Nurses continued to work in this hospital’s dispensary well into the twentieth century. However, Margaret Barbalet suggests that the ‘Sister Dispenser’ only had an amateur’s knowledge of pharmacy. In some circles, the closest nurses came to handling medicines was stocking the drug cupboard and then giving out medicines to patients on the doctor’s orders. Clifford Craig, writing the history of the Launceston General Hospital, reflects the view that only doctors dispensed drugs in the 1890s:
Doctors are trained in dispensing and it seems quite certain that,
in the Hospital’s early days, all dispensing was done by the medical staff. Indeed in some Annual Reports the description “house-surgeon and dispenser” was used.
Nonetheless, pharmacy was slowly becoming an attractive occupation for young women, and there were qualified female dispensers who were not nurses. Isabella Jane Kerr, appointed on 1 May 1895, was the dispenser of drugs at Burrundie, south of Palmerston in the Northern Territory, for which she received ten
volume 4 ■ no 34 ■ February 2008
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 3