Apothecary (pronounced /əˈpɒθɨkɛəri/) is a historical name for a medical professional Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Before scientific medicine, healing arts were practised in accordance with alchemical treatments and ritual practices that developed out of religious and cultural traditions who formulates and dispenses materia medica Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . In Latin, the term literally means "medical material/substance". The term was used from the period of the Roman Empire until the twentieth century, but has now been generally replaced in medical to physicians A physician—also known as doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor—practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury. This properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines underlying, surgeons Surgery is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, to help improve bodily function or appearance, and sometimes for religious reasons. An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical procedure, operation, or simply and patients A patient is any person who receives medical attention, care, or treatment. The person is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician or other health care professional, although one who is visiting a physician for a routine check-up may also be viewed as a patient — a role now served by a pharmacist Pharmacists are health professionals who practice the science of pharmacy. In their traditional role, pharmacists typically take a request for medicines from a prescribing health care provider in the form of a medical prescription, evaluate the appropriateness of the prescription, dispense the medication to the patient and counsel them on the (or a chemist Pharmacists are health professionals who practice the science of pharmacy. In their traditional role, pharmacists typically take a request for medicines from a prescribing health care provider in the form of a medical prescription, evaluate the appropriateness of the prescription, dispense the medication to the patient and counsel them on the or dispensing chemist A dispensing chemist, in British English and Australian English, or pharmacist in North American English is a professional allowed to fulfil prescriptions), and some caregivers Carer and caregiver (US, Canadian usage) are words normally used to refer to unpaid relatives or friends who support people with disabilities. The words may be prefixed with "family" "spousal", "child" to distinguish between different care situations. The general term dependent/dependant care is also used for the.
In addition to pharmacy responsibilities, the apothecary offered general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by other specialist practitioners, such as surgery and midwifery Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during their pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also care for the newborn through to six weeks of age, including assisting the mother with breastfeeding. Apothecaries often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, it is used in some medicines. It is most commonly used as a recreational drug, and is a valuable cash crop for countries such as Cuba, China and United States and patent medicines Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The phrase is somewhat misleading because for the most part these products were trademarked, not patented . In ancient times, such medicine was called nostrum remedium ("our remedy" in Latin). The name patent medicine has.
In its investigation of herbal Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotherapy. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain and chemical ingredients, the work of the apothecary may be regarded as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry Chemistry is the science of matter and the changes it undergoes. The science of matter is also addressed by physics, but while physics takes a more general and fundamental approach, chemistry is more specialized, being concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical and pharmacology Pharmacology is the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function. If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals. The field encompasses drug composition and properties, interactions,, prior to the formulation of the scientific method Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of.
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History
The first mention of an apothecary was in the Book of Exodus (Torah and Old Testament) in which Moses was given instructions by God for the preparation of the Holy Anointing Oil that was to be used for consecrating the Tabernacle.
Exodus 30:25 – "And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil."
Another reference was made by King Solomon as cited in the Scriptures:
"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor, so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor." Ecclesiastes 10: 1.
According to Sharif Kaf al-Ghazal[1] and S. Hadzovic,[2] the first apothecary shops were founded during the Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in in Baghdad Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated between 7 and 7.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt).[1] The first one was founded by Muslim pharmacists In the history of medicine, Islamic medicine or Arabic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, a significant number of scientists during this period were not Arab. Some consider the label "Arab-Islamic" as in 754,[2] during the Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire [disambiguation needed]. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus, or Islamic Golden Age The Islamic Golden Age is traditionally dated from the mid-8th to the mid-13th century A.D. although it has been extended by one scholar to at least the 15th century. During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, law,. Apothecaries were also active in Islamic Spain Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation in the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Berbers and African Muslims (given the generic name of Moors), at various times in the period between 711 and 1492 by the 11th century.[3]
By the end of the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy (1342–1400) was mentioning an English apothecary in the Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. In a long list of works,, specifically "The Nun's Priest's Tale The Nun's Priest's Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by the 14th century Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer" as Pertelote speaks to Chauntecleer (lines 181–184):
. . . for ye shal nat tarie, Though in this toun is noon apothecarie, I shal myself to herbes techen yow, That shul been for youre hele and for youre prow. . . . since you shouldn't tarry, And in this town there's no apothecary, I will myself go find some herbs for you That will be good for health and pecker too.[4]
By the 15th century, the apothecary gained the status of a skilled practitioner, but by the end of the 19th century, the medical professions had taken on their current institutional form, with defined roles for physicians and surgeons, and the role of the apothecary was more narrowly conceived as that of pharmacist (dispensing chemist in British English).
One famous mention of an apothecary appears in William Shakespeare William Shakespeare [a] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".[b] His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of 38 plays,[c] 154 sonnets, two long narrative's play Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet and Macbeth, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today,, in which a poor apothecary sells Romeo an elixir of death with which Romeo commits suicide.
In England, the apothecaries merited their own livery company The 108 livery companies are trade associations based in the City of London, almost all of which are known as the "Worshipful Company of" the relevant trade or profession. The livery companies originally developed as guilds and were responsible for the regulation of their trades, controlling, for instance, wages and labour conditions, the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, founded in 1617. Its roots, however, go back much earlier to the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180[5]. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain when she passed the Society's examination in 1865.
Apothecaries used their own measurement system, the apothecaries' system The apothecaries' system of weights is a historical system of mass units that were used by physicians and apothecaries for medical recipes, and also sometimes by scientists. The English version of the system is closely related with the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being exactly the same in both. It divides a pound into 12, to provide precise weighing of small quantities. Apothecaries also were known to accept special requests for viles and poisons. This meaning of the term "apothecary" has not passed into archaic oblivion, as in William Faulkner William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning American author. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based on his novels, novellas and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter's still widely read 1930 story "A Rose for Emily "A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forum. This story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city, Jefferson, in his fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine" the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, goes to an "apothecary" and buys arsenic Arsenic is the chemical element that has the symbol As, atomic number 33 and atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250. Arsenic is a notoriously poisonous metalloid with many allotropic forms, including a yellow (molecular non-metallic) and several black and grey forms (metalloids). Three metalloidal forms of, ostensibly to kill a rat (which turns out later to have been her Yankee The term Yankee , has a few related meanings, usually referring to someone either of general United States origin or, more specifically within the U.S., to people originating in New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region boyfriend A boyfriend is a person's regular male companion in a romantic and/or sexual relationship, though normally not in long-term committed relationships, where other titles (e.g. husband, partner) are more commonly used. In addition, the term "boy friend" (or in some areas "guy friend") can refer to a male non-romantic and non- who had apparently become bent on jilting her).[6] Words which are cognate to apothecary have the meaning of "pharmacist Pharmacists are health professionals who practice the science of pharmacy. In their traditional role, pharmacists typically take a request for medicines from a prescribing health care provider in the form of a medical prescription, evaluate the appropriateness of the prescription, dispense the medication to the patient and counsel them on the" or "dispensing chemist A dispensing chemist, in British English and Australian English, or pharmacist in North American English is a professional allowed to fulfil prescriptions" in certain modern languages. In Swedish Swedish ( svenska ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along, for example, a pharmacy is ett apotek.[7] The pharmacist (dispensing chemist) is called en apotekare.[8] Very similar as well is the German German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Globally, German is spoken by approximately 120 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers equivalent Apotheke (pharmacy) with the Apotheker being the pharmacist.[9]
The Spanish Countries where Spanish has official status. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10-20% of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5-9.9% of the population-derived word bodega also has the same root.[10]
Noted apothecaries
- James Parkinson
- Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri , commonly known as Dante, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. He was born in Florence. He died and is buried in Ravenna. The name Dante is, according to the words of Jacopo Alighieri, a hypocorism for Durante. In contemporary documents it is followed by the patronymic Alagherii or de Alagheriis; it was Boccaccio who
- Benedict Arnold Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While he was still a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted unsuccessfully to surrender it to the British. After the plot was exposed in
- Silvanus Bevan
- Émile Coué Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion
- Nicholas Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer. His published books, The English Physitian (1652) and the Complete Herbal (1653), contain a rich store of pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge
- John Keats John Keats was the last born of the English Romantic poets and, at 25, the youngest to die. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death. During his life, his poems were not
- Nostradamus Michel de Nostredame , usually Latinised to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties ("The Prophecies"), the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since the publication of this book, which has
- John Parkinson
- Joseph Proust Joseph Louis Proust was born on September 26, 1754 in Angers, France. His father served as an apothecary in Angers. Joseph studied chemistry in his father’s shop and later came to Paris where he gained the appointment of apothecary in chief to the Salpetriere . He also taught chemistry along with Pilâtre de Rozier, a famous aeronaut. He was a
- Giulio Goldoni
- Nicholas Hughes
References
- ^ a b Sharif Kaf al-Ghazal, The valuable contributions of Al-Razi (Rhazes) in the history of pharmacy during the Middle Ages, Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, Vol. 3 (6), October 2004, pp. 9–11.
- ^ a b Information taken from the abstract of Hadzović, S (1997). "Pharmacy and the great contribution of Arab-Islamic science to its development" (in Croatian). Medicinski arhiv 51 (1–2): 47–50. ISSN An International Standard Serial Number is a unique eight-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. The ISSN system was adopted as international standard ISO 3297 in 2007. The ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for the standard 0350-199X. OCLC OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs". It was incorporated on July 6, 1967 as the not-for-profit Ohio College Library Center. More than 72,00 32564530. PMID A PMID is a unique number assigned to each PubMed citation of life sciences and biomedical scientific journal articles. The related Pubmed Central archive may additionally assign a separate number, a PMCID (PubMed Central Identifier), normally written with a PMC prefix 9324574.
- ^ John Brian Harley, David Woodward (1992), The history of cartography, 2, Oxford University Press Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative, p. 28, ISBN 0226316351
- ^ Quoted from Librarius, which also supplies the translation.
- ^ http://www.apothecaries.org/index.php?page=6
- ^ The story, with the word "apothecary" used, is abstracted by Janice L. Willms in New York University's Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database—"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner.
- ^ See the Swedish Wikipedia "Apotek" article. It also attributes the Iraqi (Baghdad) origin of the concept.
- ^ Related similar Swedish occupations are en farmaceut and en receptarie. Apotekare is the one with closest general equivalence and reciprocity with "dispensing chemist" (in British English) or "pharmacist" (in American English).
- ^ See the German Wikipedia Apotheke article.
- ^ Wiktionary, dictionary.reference.com
See also
Categories: Pharmacy | History of medicine
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