Pharmacy

Pharmacy, practice of compounding and dispensing drugs; also the place where such medicinal products are prepared. Pharmacy is an area of materia medica, the branch of medical science concerning the sources, nature, properties, and preparation of drugs. Pharmacists share with the chemical and medical profession responsibility for discovering new drugs and synthesizing organic compounds of therapeutic value. In addition, the community pharmacist is increasingly called upon to give advice in matters of health and hygiene.

In antiquity, pharmacy and the practice of medicine were often combined, sometimes under the direction of priests, both men and women, who ministered to the sick with religious rites as well. Many peoples of the world continue the close association of drugs, medicine, and religion or faith. Specialization first occurred early in the 9th century in the civilized world around Baghdad. It gradually spread to Europe as alchemy, eventually evolving into chemistry as physicians began to abandon beliefs that were not demonstrable in the physical world. Physicians often both prepared and prescribed medicines; individual pharmacists not only compounded prescriptions but manufactured medicaments in bulk lots for general sale. Not until well into the 19th century was the distinction between the pharmacist as a compounder of medicines and the physician as a therapist generally accepted. Now, in many countries, pharmacists are required to undergo specialized undergraduate education for periods of, on average, three to five years, followed by practical training , before being allowed to practise.

The modern pharmacist deals with complex pharmaceutical remedies far different from the elixirs, spirits, and powders described in the Pharmacopeia of London (1618) and the Pharmacopeia of Paris (1639). Most countries with a regulated health-care system prepare a compendium, or formulary, of authorized drugs and formulae.