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PHARMACY

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 359 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PHARMACY , a See also:

term which in the See also:original See also:Greek See also:form signified the use of any See also:kind of See also:drug (cap tarcov), potion or spell, and hence also See also:poison and See also:witchcraft. In the See also:modern signification it is applied to the See also:act of preparing, preserving and compounding medicines, according to the prescriptions of physicians. It was used first in this sense in 1597. In the earliest periods of the See also:world's See also:history of which we have any See also:record, this See also:art, like that of the perfumer, was practised by a See also:special class of the priesthood, as in the See also:case of Eleazar (Num. iv. 16), and that of See also:medicine by another class (Lev. xiii.). See also:Egyptian See also:inscriptions indicate that the physician-priests sent their prescriptions to be dispensed by the priests of See also:Isis when, accompanied by the chanter of incantations and spells, they visited the sick'. A See also:papyrus of Sent, 3300 B.C., gives directions as to the preparation of prescriptions. In the See also:Ebers papyrus, 1550 B.C., mention is made of blisters, ointments, clysters, See also:mineral and See also:vegetable drugs. The art of the See also:apothecary is alluded to very See also:early in the Old Testament history (Exod. See also:xxx. 25—35 and in See also:xxxvii. 20) and again in the See also:time of See also:Solomon (See also:Eccles. x. 9), but this word, which is translated See also:par fumeur in the See also:French version, only indicates that the preparation of fragrant unguents and See also:incense formed, even at that early date, a See also:part of pharmacy, since the drugs mentioned, viz. See also:galbanum, See also:myrrh, stacte, See also:frankincense, calamus, See also:cassia and See also:cinnamon, were all of them used in perfumes, even the myrrh being probably the kind distinguished at the See also:present time in the Bombay See also:market as perfumed myrrh or bissabol, which still forms an ingredient of the See also:joss sticks used as incense in the temples in See also:China.

The myrrh mentioned in Gen. xxxvii. 35 is described under another See also:

Hebrew word, and refers to ladanum, a fragrant See also:resin produced in See also:Cyprus, and the use of this drug, as well as that of cinnamon and cassia, indicates even at that early See also:period a knowledge of the products of See also:Somaliland, See also:Arabia and the See also:East Indies and the existence of See also:trade between the farther East and See also:Egypt. In China also at a very early period the art of pharmacy was practised. Ching-Hong, a contemporary of See also:Menes I. of Egypt, was learned in the art, and made decoctions and extracts of See also:plants. The materia medica of the See also:Chinese at the present date affords an excellent See also:illustration of the changes that have taken See also:place in the use of drugs, and of the theories and superstitions that have guided the selection of these from the earliest ages, inasmuch as it still comprises articles that were formerly used in medicine, but have now been utterly discarded. Thus the See also:doctrine of signatures is evident in the use of the celebrated See also:Ginseng See also:root of China, which, like that of the See also:mandrake (Gen. xxx. 14—16), owed its employment to the fact that the root often divides into branches resembling the arms and legs of a See also:man, and this resemblance gave rise to the belief that it conferred strength and virility. The same belief is shown in the botanical names applied to many plants, e.g. Pulmonaria, Hepatica, Scrophulacia, and others. The astrological belief that plants, animals and minerals are under the See also:influence of the See also:planets is shown in the older names of some of the metals, e.g. See also:Saturn for See also:lead, See also:Venus for See also:copper, and See also:Mars for See also:iron, and the belief that the See also:colours of See also:flowers ' The Egyptians believed that the medicinal virtues of plants were due to the See also:spirits who dwelt within them. indicated the particular See also:planet they were under led to their use in diseases and for constitutions supposed to be under the same planet.

Physicians to this See also:

day See also:head their prescriptions with a sign that originally meant an invocation to See also:Jupiter, but now represents the word See also:recipe. The belief, which is still held by the Chinese, that the excrements of animals retain the properties and peculiarities of the animals from which they are derived, led to the use in medicine of these disgusting remedies, which are still sold in drug shops in China, and were only omitted from the See also:English See also:Pharmacopoeia as See also:late as 1721. At that date the See also:science of See also:chemistry was very imperfectly known, and the real constituents of See also:ordinary remedies so little understood that different virtues were attributed to different See also:pro-ducts containing the same constituents. Thus, prepared See also:oyster-shells, See also:coral, pearls, crabs' " eyes " and burnt See also:hart's See also:horn were regarded as specifics in different complaints, in See also:ignorance of the fact that they all contain, as the See also:chief ingredients, See also:calcium phosphate and carbonate. The celebrated See also:Gascoigne's See also:powder, which was sold as late as the See also:middle of the 19th See also:century in the form of balls like sal prunella, consisted of equal parts of crabs' " eyes," the See also:black tips of crabs' claws, See also:Oriental pearls, Oriental bezoar and See also:white coral, and was administered in jelly made of hart's horn, but was prescribed by physicians chiefly for wealthy See also:people, as it cost about See also:forty shillings per See also:ounce. Superstition also entered largely into the choice of remedies. Thus various parts of criminals, such as the thigh See also:bone of a hanged man, See also:moss grown on a human See also:skull, &c., were used, and even the celebrated Dr Culpeper in the 17th century recommended " the ashes of the head of a See also:coal black See also:cat as a specific for such as have a skin growing over their sight." In course of time the knowledge of drugs, and consequently the number in use, gradually increased, and some of the preparations made in accordance with the art attained a celebrity that lasted for centuries. Thus diachylon See also:plaster was invented by Menecrates in A.D. 1, and was used by him for the same purposes as it is employed to-day. An electuary of See also:opium, known as Mithradatum, was invented by See also:Mithradates VI., See also:king of See also:Pontus, who lived in See also:constant fear of being poisoned, and tested the effects of poisons on criminals, and is said to have taken poisons and their antidotes every day in the See also:year. The See also:prescription for the See also:general antidote known as Mithradatum was found with his See also:body, together with other medical See also:MSS., by See also:Pompey, after his victory over that king. The prescription was improved by Damocrates and Andromachus, body physicians to See also:Nero.

The first was subsequently known as Mithradatum Damocratis, and the second as Theriaca Andromachi, the name Theriaca or Tiriaca being derived from the snake called Tyrus, the flesh of which was added to it by Andromachus. The former contained 55, or, according to some formulae, 72 ingredients, and occurs in all the dispensatories, from that of See also:

Corvus See also:Valerius up to the pharmacopoeias of the 1gth century; and aromatic preparations of opium are still used, under the name of Theriaka in See also:Persia. The Theriaca prepared at See also:Venice had the highest reputation, probably because in Venice the component parts were exposed to the inspection of See also:wise men and doctors for two months, to determine whether they were or were not See also:fit for use. The apothecaries' See also:ordinance at See also:Nuremberg provided that no Theriaca should in future be branded with the See also:seal of the See also:city unless it had been previously examined and declared worthy of the same by the doctors of medicine, and that every druggist must know the See also:age of the Theriaca he sold. Inasmuch as its See also:action changed very materially with age, " the buyer should in all instances be informed, so that he may not be deceived." The last public preparation of Theriaca took place at Nuremberg in 1754. In A.D. 77-78 Dioscorides of Anazarba, in See also:Cilicia, wrote his See also:great See also:work on materia medica, which still remains the most important work on the plants and drugs used in See also:ancient times (of which about 400 were enumerated) and until the 17th century was held as the most valuable See also:guide to medicinal plants and drugs extant. Nearly See also:loo years afterwards See also:Galen, the imperial physician at See also:Rome (A.D. 131-200), who was learned in See also:surgery,pharmacy and materia medica, added about 200 more plants to those described by Dioscorides. Galen believed in the doctrine of humours originated by See also:Hippocrates, which supposes the See also:condition of the body to depend upon the proper mixture of the four elements, hot, See also:cold, moist and dry, and that drugs possess the same elementary qualities, and that on the principle of contraries one or other was indicated, e.g. a cooling remedy for a feverish See also:state. This doctrine was held for many centuries, and drugs are classed by all the old herbalists as having one or other of these qualities in a greater or less degree. Galen is said to have invented hiera-picra, which he employed as an anthelmintic; it is still used in See also:England as a domestic remedy.

In the 6th century See also:

Alexander of See also:Tralles used See also:colchicum for See also:gout, iron for See also:anaemia, and See also:rhubarb in See also:liver weakness and See also:dysentery. The practice of pharmacy was extended by the Arabian physicians, and the separation of it from medicine was recognized in the 8th, and legalized in the r 1th century. The practice of " polypharmacy," or the use of a large number of ingredients in prescriptions, which was See also:common in the middle ages, was greatly due to the view enunciated by Alkekendo, and held by one of the Arabian See also:schools of medicine: that the activity of medicine increases in a duplicate ratio when compounded with others; and it was only in the first See also:half of the 18th century that the practice was altogether discontinued in the pharmacopoeias, although the theory was shown to be incorrect by See also:Averroes in the 12th century. The establishments for dispensing medicines at See also:Cordova, See also:Toledo and other large towns under Arab See also:rule, were placed under severe legal restrictions. See also:Frederick II. in A.D. 1233 passed a See also:law, which remained in force for a See also:long time in the two Sicilies, by which every medical man was required to give See also:information against any pharmacist who should sell See also:bad medicine. The pharmacists were divided into two classes, the stationarii, who sold See also:simple drugs and non-magisterial preparations at a See also:tariff determined by competent authorities, and the confectionarii, whose business it was to dispense scrupulously the prescriptions of medical men; all pharmaceutical establishments were placed under the surveillance of the See also:college of medicine. In the monastic period pharmacy was to a great extent under the See also:control of the religious orders, particularly the See also:Benedictines, who, from coming into contact with the Arabian physicians, devoted themselves to pharmacy, See also:pharmacology and See also:therapeutics; but, as monks were forbidden to See also:shed See also:blood, surgery See also:fell largely into the hands of barbers, so that the class of See also:barber-surgeons came into existence, and the sign of their skill in blood-letting still appears in provincial districts in England in the form of the barber's See also:pole, representing the application of bandages. In England the separation between medicine and pharmacy was somewhat later than on the See also:continent of See also:Europe. The earliest record of an apothecary's See also:shop in See also:London was in 1345. The status of the apothecary, as subordinate to the physician in the time of See also:Henry VIII., is evident from the following, out of 21 rules laid down by a prominent apothecary, who was a See also:cousin of See also:Anne See also:Boleyn: " His See also:garden must be at See also:hand, with plenty of herbs and seeds and roots. He must read Dioscorides.

He must have mortars, pots, filters, glasses and boxes clean and sweet. He must have two places in the shop, one most clean for physic, and the See also:

base place for chirurgic stuff. He is neither to increase nor to diminish the physician's prescription; he is neither to buy nor to sell rotten drugs. He is only to meddle in his own vocation; and to remember that his See also:office is only to be the physician's See also:cook." The drugs used by the physicians and apothecaries were See also:purchased from the grossarii or sellers in See also:gross, who were subsequently called grocers, some of whom specialized as druggists and others as chymists or chemists. The apothecaries, who were the pharmacists of those days, were not represented by any corporate body, but in the reign of King See also:James I., in 1606, were incorporated with the See also:Company of Grocers. This arrangement was not, however, approved of by the physicians, who obtained in 1617 a See also:separate See also:charter for the apothecaries, to the number of 114, which was the number of physicians then practising in London. At the same time it was enacted that no See also:metropolis and provincial towns. On the 18th of See also:February 1843 See also:grocer should keep an apothecary's shop, and that no surgeon a royal charter of See also:incorporation was granted to the society, and should sell medicines, and that the physicians should have the a permanent status was thus acquired. Chemists in business See also:power to See also:search the shops of the apothecaries within 7 M. of before the granting of the charter were entitled to join the London under a See also:penalty of £10o in case of a refusal to permit society as members, but those who wished to join it subsequently it. Soon after the apothecaries were formed into a separate could do so only on condition of passing an examination for the company they took into See also:consideration means to prevent the purpose of testing their knowledge of pharmacy. A school of frauds and adulterations practised by the grocers and druggists, and, to remedy the evil, established a manufactory of their own in 1626 so that they might make preparations for their own members. The frauds and adulterations were probably due in part to the apothecaries, for Dr Merrit, a collegiate physician of London, stated that " such chymists which sell preparations honestly made complain that few apothecaries will go to the See also:price of them." The medicinal preparations which required the aid of a See also:furnace, such as mineral earths, were undertaken by the chymists, who probably derived their name from the Alchymists, who flourished from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

When the word was discovered to be derived from an Arabic prefix and a Greek word the prefix was dropped. In the 19th century the word chymist became altered to chemist, although the original spelling is still continued to a small extent. The curious signs on the coloured carboys in chemists' windows, which were commonly to be seen until the middle of the 19th century, were signs used by the alchemists to indicate various chemical substances. In 1694 the apothecaries had increased from 114 to nearly r000, and many of them, having acquired a knowledge of the uses of medicine, began to prescribe medicines for their customers and to assume the functions of the physician, who retorted in 1697 by establishing dispensaries, where medicines could be procured at their See also:

intrinsic value, or at cost price. The assistants employed at these dispensaries after a time appear to have gone into business on their own See also:account, and in this way the dispensing chemists, as a class, appear to have originated. In 1748 the Apothecaries' See also:Corporation obtained a charter empowering them to license apothecaries to sell medicines in London, or within 7 m., and intended to use it to restrain chemists and druggists from practising pharmacy, and to prohibit physicians and surgeons from selling the medicines they prescribed; but the apothecaries, by paying increased See also:attention to medical and surgical practice, had not only alienated the physicians and surgeons, but materially strengthened the position of chemists and druggists as dispensers of prescriptions. When a further See also:attempt was made in 1815 to bring a See also:bill into See also:parliament including provisions for prohibiting the practice of pharmacy by uneducated persons, and giving power to examine dispensing chemists, the latter became alarmed, and, finding that the provisions of the bill were entirely in the interests of the apothecaries, and directed against chemists and druggists, the latter took See also:measures to oppose it in parliament, which were so far successful as to prevent apothecaries from interfering in any way with, or obtaining any control over, chemists and druggists. In 1841 another attempt was made by the apothecaries to control the trade of chemists and druggists on the ground that no adequate examination or See also:education in pharmacy existed, and that such should be instituted, and he controlled by the apothecaries and physicians, but the latter disclaimed any See also:desire to take an active part in the See also:matter. The chemists and druggists, recognizing that no institution for the systematic education and examination of chemists and druggists existed in England, and that no See also:proof could be given that each individual possessed the necessary qualifications, decided that this objection must be met, and that pharmacy must be placed upon a more scientific footing. They therefore resolved upon the See also:foundation of a voluntary society, under the See also:title of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great See also:Britain, " for advancing the know-ledge of chemistry and pharmacy, and promoting a See also:uniform See also:system of education for those who should practise the same, also for protecting the collective and individual interests and privileges of all its members, in the event of any hostile attack in parliament or elsewhere." This society was instituted in 1841, the original founders being chemists and druggists in the pharmacy was instituted, and a museum and library were started. The chemical laboratory in connexion with the school was, when first instituted, the only one in England for teaching purposes, and the museum is now reputed to be the best pharmaceutical one in the world, the library now containing about 13,000 volumes. The See also:examinations are three in number.

The first is of a preliminary See also:

character, qualifying for See also:registration as a student or apprentice; in lieu of this examination, certificates of matriculation at a university, and those of certain other educational bodies, are accepted. The second examination qualifies for registration as a chemist and druggist. This is known as the See also:minor examination, and must be passed before anyone can legally dispense, See also:compound and sell scheduled poisons. The subjects included are systematic See also:botany, vegetable See also:morphology and See also:physiology, chemistry, physics, materia medica, pharmacy, dispensing, posology, the See also:reading of prescriptions, and a knowledge of poisons and their antidotes. The Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908 (See also:section 4) has given the society power to regulate the preliminary training, arrange a curriculum, and See also:divide the qualifying examination into two parts, so that an approximation to the See also:standard of pharmaceutical education on the Continent is likely to take place within a See also:short period. Degrees in science and pharmacy are granted by the See also:universities of See also:Manchester and See also:Glasgow, and other universities were in 1910 considering the question of granting degrees. The third, or See also:major examination, which qualifies for registration as a pharmaceutical chemist, is not, like the minor, a compulsory one, but ranks as an honours examination. The education for this examination has kept See also:pace with the rapid advances of science, all the following subjects now receiving attention: the microscopical structure of plants and drugs, so as to detect adulterations and impurities in powdered drugs; organic and quantitative See also:analysis, including those of See also:food and drugs, See also:water, soils, See also:gas and urine; See also:optics, so as to enable them to carry out the prescriptions of oculists; spectrum analysis; the use of the polariscope and refractometer; the method of applying See also:Rontgen rays; the preparation of glandular secretions and antitoxins; and the chemistry of remedies for the fungoid diseases and See also:insect pests of plants. Those who have passed this examination are competent to perform analysis of all kinds, and generally obtain the preference for various appointments, such as head dispensers in See also:government or other large hospitals, or as analysts. The society has also established a chemical See also:research laboratory, in which much useful work has been done in connexion with the See also:national pharmacopoeia under the direction of the Pharmacopoeia See also:Committee of the Medical See also:Council. A pharmacy act, which was passed in 1852, established a distinction between registered and examined, and unregistered and unexamined chemists and druggists, creating a See also:register of the former under the name of pharmaceutical chemists, so that the public might discriminate between the two classes. A subsequent pharmacy act, passed in 1868, added a register of chemists and druggists, and rendered it unlawful for any unregistered See also:person to sell or keep open shop for selling the poisons mentioned in the See also:schedule of this act.

The See also:

administration of the act was entrusted to the pharmaceutical society, and the See also:duty of prosecuting unauthorized practitioners has been performed by the society ever since, without any pecuniary assistance from the state, although the legal expenses involved in See also:prosecution amount to a considerable portion of its income. The Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908 extended the schedule of poisons instituted by the act of 1868, and it now includes See also:arsenic, See also:aconite, aconitine and their preparations; all poisonous vegetable alkaloids, and their salts and poisonous derivatives; atropine and its salts and their preparations; See also:belladonna and all preparations or admixtures (except belladonna plasters) containing o. i % or more of belladonna See also:alkaloid; See also:cantharides and its poisonous derivatives; any preparation or admixture of See also:coca-leaves containing o • r % or more of coca alkaloids; corrosive sublimate; See also:cyanide of See also:potassium and all poisonous cyanides and their preparations; See also:tartar emetic, nux vomica, and all preparations or admixtures containing 0.2% or more of See also:strychnine; opium and all preparations and admixtures containing 1% or more of See also:morphine; picro-toxine; prussic See also:acid and all preparations and admixtures containing o• 1 % or more of prussic acid; savin and its oil, and all preparations or admixtures containing savin or its oil. None of these may be sold to any person who is unknown to the seller, unless introduced by a person known to the seller, and not until after an entry is made in a See also:book kept for the purpose, stating, in the prescribed form, the date of See also:sale, name and address of purchaser, the name and quantity of the See also:article sold, and the purpose for which it is stated by the purchaser to be required. The See also:signature of the purchaser and introducer (if any) must be affixed to the entry. The following poisons may not be sold, either See also:retail or wholesale, unless distinctly labelled with the name of the article, and the word poison, with the name and address of the seller: Almonds, essential oil of (unless deprived of prussic acid). Antimonial See also:wine. Cantharides, See also:tincture and all vesicating liquids, preparations or admixtures of. Carbolic acid, and liquid preparations of carbolic acid and its homologues containing more than 3 % of those substances, except preparations for use as See also:sheep-See also:wash or for any other purpose in connexion with See also:agriculture or See also:horticulture, contained in a closed See also:vessel distinctly labelled with the word " poisonous," the name and address of the seller, and a See also:notice of the special purposes for which the preparations are intended. See also:Chloral See also:hydrate. See also:Chloroform, and all preparations or admixtures containing more than 20 % of chloroform. Coca, any preparation or admixture of, containing more than o•i % but less than i of coca alkaloids. See also:Digitalis.

Mercuric iodide. Mercuric sulphocyanide. Oxalic acid. Poppies, all preparations of, excepting red See also:

poppy petals and See also:syrup of red poppies (Papaver Rhoeas). Precipitate, red, and all oxides of See also:mercury. Precipitate, white. See also:Strophanthus. See also:Sulphonal. All preparations or admixtures which are not included in part t of the schedule, and contain a poison within the meaning of the pharmacy acts, except preparations or admixtures, the exclusion of which from this schedule is indicated by the words therein See also:relating to carbolic acid, chloroform and coca, and except such substances as come within the provisions of section 5 of the act. It has been erroneously represented by interested persons that the Pharmaceutical Society desires a See also:monopoly of the sale of poisons. This is not the case. Any poisonous substance that is not included in the schedules can be sold by anyone, as, for instance, red lead, sulphate of copper, &c.

The duty of the Pharmaceutical Society is a purely legal one, and relates only to the schedules of poisons framed by the government to protect the public by rendering it a difficult matter to obtain the poisons most frequently used for criminal purposes. In See also:

continental countries the See also:laws are even more stringent. In response to an agitation originated by certain manufacturers (one of whom was a member of parliament), who were prosecuted for omitting to See also:label arsenical and See also:nicotine preparations as poisons, as required by the Pharmacy Act of 1868, a new act was passed in 1908, by which persons, without any training in See also:toxicology, and being neither pharmaceutical chemists, nor chemists and druggists, may be granted licences by See also:local authorities to sell poisonous substances used exclusively in agriculture or horticulture, for the destruction of See also:insects, See also:fungi or bacteria, or as sheep dips or See also:weed-killers, but which are poisonous by See also:reason of containing the scheduled poisons, arsenic or nicotine, &c. One condition concerning the granting of such licences has been, it is said, deliberately ignored in many towns, viz. that the local authority, before granting a See also:licence, ' shall take into consideration whether, in the See also:neighbour-See also:hood, the reasonable requirements of the public are satisfied with regard to the See also:purchase of poisonous substances, and. also any objections they may receive from the chief officer of See also:police, or from any existing vendors of the substances to which the application relates." It is See also:left to the Pharmaceutical Society to take legal action against any infringement of the law, although it is obvious that this should be carried out at the government expense, since it is for the benefit of a section of the public, and obviously to the loss of the members of the Pharmaceutical Society. Moreover, the present act nullifies the See also:object of the previous act of 1868, which was to reduce the facilities for obtaining poisons. The fact that a voluntary society with limited funds must contest the illegal decisions of local See also:councils, without government support, seems likely to render this portion of the act of 1908 a dead See also:letter. At the time of the passing of the Pharmacy Act of 1852 co-operative associations did not come under consideration, and no See also:provision was made concerning them as regards the title of chemist, or as to any action such associations might take to evade the law. It has been decided in the law courts that a limited liability companyis not a person in the See also:eye of the law, and therefore does not come under the operation of the act of 1868. The result of this decision was that any chemist who failed to pass the qualifying examination could constitute himself with a few others, even if ignorant of pharmacy, into a limited liability company, which would then have been outside the See also:powers of the act, and not subject to its provisions. This false position was remedied by the act of 1908, which brings companies into See also:line with individuals. On the continent of Europe the dispensing of prescriptions is confined to pharmacists (pharmaciens and apothe- kers). They are not allowed to prescribe, nor the R eg reign Rulations. medical men to dispense, except under special licence, and then only in small villages, where the pharmacist could not make a living.

The principle of " one man one shop " is general; a pharmacist may not own more than one shop in the same See also:

town. In See also:Holland he may not enter into any agreement, See also:direct or indirect, with a medical man with regard to the See also:supply of medicines. In See also:Austria, See also:Germany, See also:Italy, See also:Rumania and See also:Russia the number of pharmacies is limited according to the See also:population. In See also:France, See also:Switzerland, See also:Belgium and Holland the number is not limited, and every qualified pharmacist has the right to open a shop or buy a pharmacy. Where the number of pharmacies is limited by law prescriptions may only be dispensed at these establishments. The original prescription is kept by the pharmacist for either three or ten years, according to the See also:country, and a certified copy given to the patient, written on white See also:paper if for See also:internal use, or on coloured paper (usually See also:orange yellow) if for See also:external use. The price of the drugs and the tariff for dispensing prescriptions is fixed by government authority. In Russia a prescription containing any of the poisons indicated in the schedules A and B in the See also:Russian pharmacopoeia may not be repeated, except by See also:order of the See also:doctor. The use of pharmacopoeia preparations made by manufacturers is allowed, but the seller is held responsible for their purity and strength. The prices charged for dispensing are See also:lower in countries where the number of pharmacies is limited by law, the larger returns enabling the profit to be lessened. The educational course adopted in different countries varies as to the details of the subjects taught. The preliminary, or classical examination, is usually that of university matriculation, or its See also:equivalent.

The period of study is eighteen months in See also:

Denmark or See also:Norway, and two in Austria, See also:Finland, Germany, See also:Portugal, Russia, See also:Sweden and Switzerland, "three in Belgium, France, See also:Greece and Italy, four to six in Holland, and five in See also:Spain. In Great Britain the period of study is voluntary, and usually occupies only one year. Two or three years of See also:apprenticeship is required in most countries, including Great Britain, but none in Belgium, Greece, Italy or Spain. The subject of patent medicines is but little understood by the general public. Any medicine, the See also:composition of which is kept See also:secret, but which is advertised on the label for the cure of diseases, must in Great Britain See also:bear a patent Patent Medicines. medicine See also:stamp equal to about one-ninth of its See also:face value. The See also:British Medical Association published in 1907 a work on Secret Remedies; what they cost and what they contain. The analyses published in this work show that nearly all the widely advertised secret remedies contain only well-known and inexpensive drugs. The Pharmaceutical Society on the other hand has also published a Pharmaceutical See also:Journal Formulary, including several See also:hundred formulae of proprietary medicines sold by pharmacists, so that it is now possible for any medical man to ascertain what they contain. The government accepts all the therein published formulae as " known, admitted and approved " remedies, and therefore not requiring a patent medicine stamp. In this way widely advertised secret remedies can be replaced by medicines of known composition and accepted value in any part of the world. Most continental countries have issued stringent laws against the sale of secret remedies, and these have been lately strengthened in Germany, France and Italy. In Switzerland secret remedies cannot be advertised without submitting the See also:formula and a See also:sample of the remedy to the See also:board of See also:health.

(E. M.

End of Article: PHARMACY

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