We look at the ten of the most famous names to have graced the pharmacy profession.

Pharmacy has been a profession for hundreds of years, with the first actual pharmacies dating back to the 13th century. Medicine was still primarily the province of doctors and other healers until the 18th century, with pharmacies eventually morphing into the modern drugstores that sell everything from toys to hardware. The profession has been embraced by some influential people, with a few of them standing out as exemplary – and sometimes surprising – men of note.

The first professional pharmacies are said to have been in Baghdad in the 13th century. As a practice distinct from that of medicine and healing, modern pharmacies developed in the 18th century, and by the 20th century had expanded to include general merchandise and even food counters. Below we list several famous people who spent time behind the pharmacist’s counter, a sampling that includes apprentices to apothecaries, clerks for chemists, and owners and operators of the family drugstore.

1. Benjamin Franklin. Believe it or not, this Founding Father was a pharmacist before he was ever a printer, statesman, or infamous ladies man. Working as a clerk in a neighborhood mercantile store, he dispensed medicines, herbs and various curatives. The man who famously said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” apparently knew what he was talking about.

2. Henrik Ibsen. The renowned Norwegian playwright spent his teenage years working as a pharmacists apprentice. He left home at 15 and made his way to the coastal town of Grimstad where he lived for six years, eventually becoming assistant pharmacist. Ibsen studied to become a physician but wasn’t a very good student – fortunately for theater lovers.

3. Dante Alighieri. The great Italian poet and author of “The Divine Comedy” was an apothecary guild in the late 1200’s, but may never have actually dispensed medicines – at that time it was required that anyone involved in local politics be a member of a guild, so his membership in the apothecaries’ guild filled the bill. But since books were sold in apothecaries’ shops in those days, it was probably a good choice.

4. Sir Isaac Newton. The man who changed the world with his theory of gravity served as an apprentice apothecary in Grantham, England, living with the town’s apothecary and becoming engaged to the boss’s daughter. He left both, however, to study at Cambridge, where he began his illustrious career in physics and mathematics. Newton never went back to the pharmaceutical arts and he apparently gave up women, too – the apothecary’s daughter married someone else and Newton lived the rest of his life as a bachelor.

5. O. Henry. The brilliant American writer – born William Sydney Porter – worked in a number of diverse jobs before he became a writer. He worked in his uncle’s drugstore as a teenager and became a pharmacist at 19. During his writing career he supported himself for a time as a bank teller – and was later jailed for embezzlement. So perhaps he’s not the best example of a pharmacist to hold up, but he did write “The Gift of the Magi.”

6. Hubert H. Humphrey. The Minnesota democrat worked for a short time as a pharmacists in his father’s drugstore, later going into politics and serving as mayor of Minneapolis, a U. S. senator and, of course, Vice President of the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson. His brief stint as a pharmacists was honored in 1966 when he was named Pharmacist of the Year by the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. The American Pharmaceutical Association bestows its annual Hubert H. Humphrey Award on pharmacists who are known, like Humphrey, for their commitment to civil rights and public service.

7. Wilbur L. Scoville. The American chemist is best known for creating “The Scoville Organoleptic Test”, now known as the Scoville scale – while working at Parke-Davis pharmaceuticals in 1912 he devised the test, which measures the hotness of chili peppers. He also wrote one of the most-used pharmaceutical reference books, “The Art of Compounding,” which was first published in 1895 and continued to be used in the industry until the mid-1960’s.

8. Charles Walgreen. After losing part of a finger in an accident at the shoe factory where he worked, Walgreen took his doctor up on his suggestion that he apprentice with a local druggist. He later studied in Chicago and became a pharmacist, interrupting his career to serve in the Spanish-American War. After his discharge, Walgreen worked for a Chicago pharmacist, eventually buying the store when the owner retired. He started adding more stores and built the famous Walgreen’s chain – and, along the way, introduced such drugstore staples as soda fountains and lunch counters.

9. George F. Archambault. Considered to be the creator of the consultant style most pharmacies adopt today, Archambault is truly a hero among those in the profession. He is quoted with the following vision for pharmacists everywhere: “It is the pharmacist’s professional responsibility to protect the public against iatrogenesis, physician-induced injury or disease in the area of drug prescribing especially as to overdosage, incompatibilities, contraindications, and synergistic drug actions.”

10. John Pemberton. While few remember his name, most drink a version of his tonic on a regular basis even today. Pemberton invented Coca Cola as a cure for headaches and nervousness. When it was mixed with carbonated water, it was sold as a fountain drink and a cure for morphine addiction.

While few of us think of the folks behind the pharmacy counter as famous, these individuals certainly left their mark on the profession.

(Source HealthCareerNet)

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