Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Medical Stores in 1865, Pharmacist Training and Pharmacopoeias in India Until the Launch of the Indian Pharmacopoeia in 1955


Affiliations
1 C. Y. O’Connor Village Medical Centre, Erade Drive, Piarra Waters, WA 6112, Australia
2 Charles Sturt University, P. O. Box 883, Orange, NSW 2800, Australia
 

Medical stores attached to army hospitals serviced as pharmacies in India until the later decades of the 19th century. Only around the 1920s, independent pharmacies as retail outlets began to appear in India. An army surgeon, Edward Nicholson, in an article published in the Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science (1865), while stationed in Cannanore in the erstwhile Presidency of Madras, laments on the poor quality of the army medical stores and how the surgeons were also to function as the compounder–dispenser in army hospitals. In this paper, we have used this Nicholson’s narrative as a trigger to reconstruct the status of army medical stores in British India and the publication of pharmacopoeias (also referred as Materia Medicas) in India by British surgeons in India, such as William O’Shaughnessy and Edward Waring in 1842 and 1868 respectively. The Madras Presidency contributed, in an equally significant measure, to pharmacopoeial knowledge. Mohideen Sheriff, an early graduate of the Madras Medical College (MMC) and who superintended the Triplicane Dispensary for several years, wrote the Materia Medica of Madras. The MMC offered training to medical students in Materia Medica in the 1860s. However, formal training of Chemists and Druggists (= pharmacists) commenced in MMC only between 1870 and 1879. Madras pioneered in establishing the Pharmaceutical Society of India in 1925 – the first established professional body – primarily meant to act as an accreditation society, which was amalgamated with the Indian Pharmaceutical Association functioning in Banares (Varanasi) in 1949.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Nicholson, E., Madras Q. J. Med. Sci., 1865, 8, 335–342.

  • Martin, M. (ed.), The Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, K. G. During his Administration in India (Volume 4), W.H. Allen & Co., London, 1837, p. 682.

  • Bonnemain, B., Rev. Hist. Pharm., 2008, 95, 311–334.

  • Cowen, D. L., Med. Hist., 1957, 1, 123–139.

  • Singer, C. and Underwood, E. A., Short History of Medicine, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 1962, p. 854.

  • Griffith, R. T. H., The Atharva-Veda Described: with a Classified Selection of Hymns, Explanatory Notes and Review, Christian Literature Society for India, London, UK, 1897, p. 68.

  • Saini, A., J. Fam. Med. Primary Care, 2016, 5, 254–258.

  • Van Loon, G. (ed.), Charaka Samhita–Handbook on Ayurveda, 2002–2003, I, pp. 291–468, 537–628, http://yousigma.com/biographies/Charaka%20Samhita%-20(Acharya%20Charaka).pdf (accessed on 8 August 2017).

  • Valiathan, M. S., The Legacy of Vāgbhata, Universities Press, Hyderabad, 2009, p. 920.

  • Valiathan, M. S., The Legacy of Suśruta, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2011, p. 830.

  • Real Academia Nacional de Medicina de Madrid, Farmacopea Española, Imprenta Nacional, Madrid, Spain, 1865, p. 628.

  • Sonnedecker, G., Kremers and Urdang’s History of Pharmacy (4th edition), The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 1986, p. 571.

  • Raman, R. and Raman, A., Curr. Sci., 2014, 107, 909–913.

  • Jensen, N. T., Med. Hist., 2005, 49, 489–515.

  • Raman, A., Curr. Sci., 2017, 113, 368–369.

  • Chopra, R. N., Chopra, I. C., Handa, K. L. and Kapur, L. D., Indigenous Drugs of India (2nd Edition), Academic Publishers, Calcutta, 2006, p. 816.

  • Basu, A., Indian J. Hist. Sci., 1989, 24, 318–328.

  • Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission; http://ipc.nic.in/search-detail.asp?lang=1&lid=99&EncHid=, n.d. (accessed on 7 July 2017).

  • Bhattacharya, N., Hist. Comp., 2016, 14, 131–139.

  • O’Shaughnessy, W. B., Prov. Med. J. Retros. Med. Sci., 1843, 123, 363–369.

  • Gorman, M., Notes Rec. R. Soc. London, 1984, 39, 51–64.

  • Ghose, S., Indian J. Hist. Sci., 1994, 29, 9–12.

  • MacGillivray, N., J. Med. Biogra., 2015, doi:10.1177/0967772015596276.

  • O’Shaughnessy, W.B., The Bengal Dispensatory, Chiefly Compiled from the Works of Roxburgh, Wallich, Ainslie, Wight, Arnot, Royle, Pereira, Lindley, Richard, and Fee Including the Results of Numerous Special Experiments, Government of India, printed at W. Thacker & Co, Calcutta, 1842, p. 794.

  • Ray, P. C., In Shaping of Indian Science: Indian Science Congress Association’s Presidential Addresses 1914–1947, Universities Press, Hyderabad, 2003, pp. 82–95.

  • Waring, E. J., Pharmacopoeia of India, W. H. Allen & Co., London, UK, 1868, p. 502.

  • Sheriff, M., Materia Medica of Madras (Vol. 1), Superintendent, Government Press, Madras, 1891, p. 161.

  • Executive Committee of the Calcutta International Exhibition, Official Report of the Calcutta International Exhibition 1883–1884, Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1885.

  • Singh, H., Pharmaceutical Education, Vallabh Prakashan, Delhi, 1998, p. 204.

  • Dickinson, J. E., LIII Annual Report of the Madras Medical College Session 1875–76, Government of Madras, Madras, 1876, p. 69.

  • King, H., Annual Report of the Madras Medical College, Session 1879–80, Government of Madras, Madras, p. 16; http://digital.nls.uk/indiapapers/browse/archive/74952890

  • Satthianadhan, S., History of Education in the Madras Presidency, Srinivasa, Varadachari & Co., Madras, 1894, pp. 295+cxxxiv.

  • The Publication Committee, History of Higher Education in South India, 1857–1957, Vol. II, University of Madras, Madras, 1894, p. 398.

  • Elwes, F. F., In Madras 1922 Handbook, (ed. the Indian Science Congress Committee), facsimile edition by Asian Education Service, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 65–71.

  • Singh, H., Indian J. Hist. Sci., 2000, 35, 67–76.

  • Sen, B. K., Gera, J. C., Gogia, K. L. and Rajagopalan, T. S., Ann. Libr. Sci. Doc., 1966, 13, 1–24.

  • Singh, H., Indian J. Hist. Sci., 2008, 43, 231–264.

  • Anon., Indian J. Pharm., 1949, 1, 174–175.

  • Kaul, R., Pharm. Hist., 2001, 53, 102–110.

  • Nicholson, E., Indian Snakes. An Elementary Treatise on Ophiology with a Descriptive Catalogue of the Snakes Found in India and the Adjoining Countries, Higginbotham & Co, Madras, 1874, p. 188.

  • University of Madras, The, The Calendar for 1928–1929, The University of Madras, Madras, 1928, vol. II, p. 484.

  • Anon., Nature, 1939, 143, 405.


Abstract Views: 721

PDF Views: 156




  • Medical Stores in 1865, Pharmacist Training and Pharmacopoeias in India Until the Launch of the Indian Pharmacopoeia in 1955

Abstract Views: 721  |  PDF Views: 156

Authors

Ramya Raman
C. Y. O’Connor Village Medical Centre, Erade Drive, Piarra Waters, WA 6112, Australia
Anantanarayanan Raman
Charles Sturt University, P. O. Box 883, Orange, NSW 2800, Australia

Abstract


Medical stores attached to army hospitals serviced as pharmacies in India until the later decades of the 19th century. Only around the 1920s, independent pharmacies as retail outlets began to appear in India. An army surgeon, Edward Nicholson, in an article published in the Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science (1865), while stationed in Cannanore in the erstwhile Presidency of Madras, laments on the poor quality of the army medical stores and how the surgeons were also to function as the compounder–dispenser in army hospitals. In this paper, we have used this Nicholson’s narrative as a trigger to reconstruct the status of army medical stores in British India and the publication of pharmacopoeias (also referred as Materia Medicas) in India by British surgeons in India, such as William O’Shaughnessy and Edward Waring in 1842 and 1868 respectively. The Madras Presidency contributed, in an equally significant measure, to pharmacopoeial knowledge. Mohideen Sheriff, an early graduate of the Madras Medical College (MMC) and who superintended the Triplicane Dispensary for several years, wrote the Materia Medica of Madras. The MMC offered training to medical students in Materia Medica in the 1860s. However, formal training of Chemists and Druggists (= pharmacists) commenced in MMC only between 1870 and 1879. Madras pioneered in establishing the Pharmaceutical Society of India in 1925 – the first established professional body – primarily meant to act as an accreditation society, which was amalgamated with the Indian Pharmaceutical Association functioning in Banares (Varanasi) in 1949.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv114%2Fi06%2F1358-1366