National Pharmacy Week
October 16-22, 2016
Pharmacy Week acknowledges the invaluable contributions that pharmacists and technicians make to patient care in hospitals, ambulatory care clinics, and other healthcare settings. It is an ideal time for pharmacists to acknowledge and celebrate their achievements in ensuring safe and effective medication use and to share those accomplishments with patients, other health professionals, and the community.
National Pharmacy Week acknowledges the invaluable contributions that pharmacists and technicians make to patient care in our nation’s health care institutions. It is an ideal time for pharmacy departments to acknowledge and celebrate their achievements in ensuring safe and effective medication use in their institutions and to share those accomplishments with patients, other health professionals and the community.
The pharmacy profession can be traced back at least as far as the Sumerian population, living in modern day Iraq. From around 4000 BC, they used medicinal plants such as liquorice, mustard, myrrh, and opium. There were separate people who worked to prepare medicines, as a separate role from diagnosis and treatment which was carried out by medics. These precursors to pharmacists also combined their role with that of a priest. The Sumerians wrote the earliest surviving prescriptions from at least 2700 B.C., nearly 5000 years ago.
The Ancient Egyptians had specific preparers of medicine, known as Pastophor. Pharmacy was viewed as a high status branch of medicine, and like the Sumerians, these pharmacists were also priests who worked and practised in the temples.
From surviving papyrus scrolls, notably the Ebers Papyrus which dates from 1500 BC, we know that the Egyptians made and used infusions, ointments, lozenges, suppositories, lotions, enemas, and pills. The Ebers Papyrus includes 875 prescriptions and 700 drugs.
Meanwhile, in China in about the same era (2000 BC), a man called Shen Nung wrote the first Pen T’sao or native herbal, which contained descriptions of 365 plant-based drugs.
Stalls and shops selling medicinal goods existed around 1900 B.C. in the town of Sippara on the Euphrates river.
Since King James I established Western society’s first independent pharmacist guild in England during the early 17th century, pharmacy has held a central role in health care. Initially known as “apothecaries,” early community pharmacists prepared and dispensed remedies while offering front-line medical advice to their customers. Apothecary traditions traveled to the New World with the English colonists, where they flourished for centuries.
National Pharmacist Day
Pharmacist Day is celebrated each year on January 12. Pharmacists, also known as chemists or druggists, are healthcare professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use. The role of the pharmacist has shifted from the classical "lick, stick, and pour" dispensary role, to being an integrated member of the health care team directly involved in patient care.
Pharmacist Day is celebrated each year on January 12. Pharmacists, also known as chemists or druggists, are healthcare professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use. The role of the pharmacist has shifted from the classical "lick, stick, and pour" dispensary role, to being an integrated member of the health care team directly involved in patient care.
The history of pharmacy, and treatment plans with drugs, goes back to around 2600 B.C. in Babylonia, according to the University of the Pacific Academy of Student Pharmacists. But much as changed since then. For one thing, doctors no longer wear protective charms made of blood and powdered toads, as they did during the Black Plague of the 14th century. A few hundred years after that, you could enter an apothecary -- as pharmacies were known then -- in Woolsthorpe, England, and request your powdered toads from Isaac Newton, who did an apprenticeship there before going on to revolutionize the scientific world.
This is a day to take a moment to think of all the people who work as pharmacists.
They only see us when we’re sick with a cold, cough, measles or have a hangover… or when we’ve run out of toothpaste. These poor folks help us to feel better, and only ever see us at our worst. Take a moment to visit a pharmacy with a smile on your face and a healthy bounce to your step – we’re sure you’ll surprise them.
