"Bancoff."
the bald man sitting in the car said into the speaker.
The man kindly clarified his last name for me by spelling it out.
I
turned from the glass drive-through window of Walgreens and walked
towards
the bins where filled prescriptions waited alphabetically. I
rummaged through the letter b's until I found the name Bancoff. I
took a step back from the shelf and gazed at the rows of drugs and
medicines surrounding me. My boss, Melinda, had happily explained
to me the past couple of
days the origins of pharmacy in ancient Egypt and how the practice of
pharmacy grew and expanded into a profession in Europe during the
medieval period, but I still
wondered how pharmacy came to America as a practice. Once again,
I felt like my short certification training at tech school had not
provided an adequate foundation for my career.
I
walked back to the drive - through window and sent over the man's
prescription in exchange for
his payment. I keyed in the appropriate numbers on the cash
register as
Melinda
approached me from behind.
"Melinda?" I questioned. "So I understand that pharmacy became a
more formalized area of practice in Europe, but when did pharmacy
develop in America? I shut the drawer of the register and turned
around to face my boss. "My text book
in tech school mentioned something like the 'New World medicine also
was closely tied to religious thought, and Indian cultures treated
their patients with a blend of religious rituals and herbal remedies'
(Craig 4). That was about all it mentioned on the beginnings of
pharmacy in America or the New World. It just makes me think of
frequent stereotypes of the Indian medicine man and unsterile practices
with unchecked infections going rampant without proper
treatments. Yet something tells me after hearing you talk about
the history of pharmacy the past couple of days, pharmacy was probably
a much more organized and scientific practice than I think in early
modern America."
Melinda grinned
at
me. She looked around to make sure there were no customers needing to
be serviced before launching into her answer. We worked the night
shift, however, so few customers came out during this time. "Well, you are right" she began. "The first
traces of written record we have of any kind of medicines in the New
World or North America came from Christopher Columbus's voyages.
Surgeons or physicians accompanied him on his trips to America. A
man by the name of Doctor Chanca sailed with
him on his second voyage and 'wrote, in 1493, a letter to the Chapter
of Seville containing a few remarks on drugs' (Kremers 187). It was
these voyages of Columbus that allowed the introduction of the New
World medicines into other parts of the world. It was a physician named Nicolas Monardes in Spain that
wrote the
first treatise on American drugs in 1545." "So did this guy Nicolas travel
himself to the New World to study American drugs?" I asked.
Melinda shook
her
head. "No, interestingly, he never traveled to the New World, but
rather had seeds and roots of plants mailed to him from America.
He started 'a botanical garden in which he grew and observed many of
the new introductions.' (Conrad 306). Nicolas popularized many of the
these drugs he grew in Europe and sold them for quite a profit."
"Thats very interesting" I replied. "So back in
America, were the Native Indians the only ones who knew the drugs
and how to heal people? Did they always perform rituals and
incantations as we often see pictured to us?"
Melinda laughed. "Yes, Indians did posses a
great deal of medicine knowledge, however they were not the only
ones. Medicine was also used, 'for the first hundred years of
colonial America, by three types of individuals: the governors, the
churchmen, and the educators.' (Kremers 195). Housewives, too, were
often
the pharmacists. Many important books were written to help guide these
men and women in the New World in how to properly treat diseases and
how to
use medicines. One of the most influential books was written by
Nicholas Culpeper in 1652. It was called, The English Physician. In it,
he outlines and details various drugs and their uses.
Interestingly, he writes in this book, for example, that apples, 'have
a
sharp taste, and are good for fainting Stomachs and loos Bellies' (The
English Physician).
I laughed. "Well, they still do say that an
apple a day keeps the doctor away. I wonder if that saying
developed from around that time frame."
Melinda shrugged. "I'm not sure. But these
books, along with the early colonist's medicine practices were, of
course, strongly
influenced by the Native American Indians. Many settlers did seek out
Indian doctors for treatment and it was no wonder why. 'The
natives initially seemed free of all the dread diseases that afflicted
Europeans and their good health was understandably thought to be a
product of their special knowledge of indigenous medicinal herbs'
(Starr 48). Their practices were much more sterile and clean than
one might be lead to believe. Of course, there were rituals and
religious ceremonies that sometimes accompanied the healing of a sick
patient, but not always."
"So what about the first pharmacies opened in
America. Tell me about those." I asked her.
"Well," Melinda replied. "In 1721, 'physician Dr.
William Douglas wrote that there were fourteen apothecary shops in
Boston' (Kremers 200). Philadelphia also boasted several drugstores.
These stores often advertised in the local newspapers. The first real
retail pharmacies, however, that led to stores like this Walgreens, did
not really open until modern periods, into the nineteenth
century. We can save that for another day. "
"Wow. Thanks, Melinda, for all the wonderful
information. That clarified a lot of things for me about the history of
pharmacy." I turned to help a customer walking up to the
counter. I continued to reflect on how amazing it is to realize
that few really understand that modern medicine, which we take for
granted every day, traveled such a long journey beginning with ancient Egypt until
finding its way into the Walgreens of America today.
Bibliography Primary Source Cushing, Harvey/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. Medical
Historical Library. The English
Physician - 1652. http://www.med.yale.edu/library/historical/culpeper/culpeper.htm.
Secondary Sources Conrad, Lawrence I., Michael Neve,
Vivian Nutton, Ray Porter, and Andrew Wear. The Western
Medical Tradition 800BC - 1800 AD. (New York:Cambridge University
Press). 1995. Craig, Charles R. and Robert E.
Stitzell. Modern
Pharmacology with Clinical Applications. (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams
& Wilkins). 2004 Kremers, Edward and George
Urdang. History of
Pharmacy. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company). 1951.
Starr, Paul. The Social
Transformation of American Medicine. (New York:Basic Books).
1982.
Image
Portrait
of author from Monardes Historia medicinal
(Hunterian Cc.2.16)
Author's
Note My first secondary sources,
The Western Medical Tradition 800
BC-1800AD., meets the
criteria for guideline number three. The
source is written by someone who can be named and an author possesses
obvious knowledge of the primary source withing it.
My
second secondary source, Modern
Pharmacology with Clinical Applications, meets the criteria for
guideline number
three. The source is written by someone who can be named and
author possesses obvious knowledge of the primary source within
it.
My third secondary source, History of
Pharmacy, meets the same criteria
as the
ones above, guideline number three. The source is written by
someone who can be named and author possesses obvious knowledge of the
primary source within it.
My
fourth secondary source, The
Social Transformation of American Medicine, meets the same criteria
as the
ones above, guideline number three. The source is written by
someone who can be named and author possesses obvious knowledge of the
primary source within it.
Sources
Use
I used my sources in particular to back up my controversial claim that
not all medical practices in early modern times were solely practiced
by Native Indians with religious rituals. I mostly just
cited my sources word for
word.
