Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

HALINA LICHOCKA* THE INTERDEPENCE OF CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY It is Paracelsus to whom we attribute the start of investigations into nature to find potent drugs, although a realization of that approach to pharmacy was closely dependent upon progress in science, the latter being a basis for any research. Accordingly, the character of pharmaceutical researches was changing, although the main ideahad remained unchanged till the middle of the 19th century and even longer. That particular period in the history of pharmacy is usually called the period of drugs. And so the climate, in which the prevailing tendency was to obtain an isolated drug favoured a growing interest in chemistry and — what is more — raised chemistry to the role of a factor determining progress in pharmaceutical sciences. This resulted in a spontaneous approach of chemistry and pharmacy, both being concerned in a way with the same field of knowledge. The fact that many scientists studied the make-up and properties of matter led to a fast evolution of chemistry, especially in the sphere of experiments and analysis. And chemistry's progress stimulated, in turn, the development of pharmacy and other natural sciences. The age of European Enlightenment came to be called in the history of pharmacy „the golden age" of that branch. Professional apothecaries had in their shops well-equipped laboratories to produce drugs. Many of those laboratories could already function as small research unit as well. And in that age of science, some of the chemist's shops became true research centres, apart from their professional activities. This was the case especially in big academic centres, where there were close links between science faculties and the chemists' community. Apothecaries used to prepare for the school reagents and preparations, acted as laboratory technicians at the university, and after pharmacy had been introduced into the academic school curricula — they were instructors in that field. Consequently, science owes to the apothecaries the discovery of many new elements, new laboratory techniques and research methods, as well as the isolation of tens of organic compounds that were unknown earlier. It has been an accepted view in the history of chemistry that the quantitative approach in science leading to the first quantitative formulation of laws of chemistry derives from A.L. Lavoisier. But there is also a polemical opinion indicating that quantitative methods had been used in the study of nature already in Antiquity to be then revived from the 13th century onwards. Anyway, the first •Institute for the History of Science, Education and Technology PAS, Nowi Swiat 72, 00-330 Warsow, Poland