The pharmaceutical sciences in America, 1852-1902.

The second half of the 19th century was a period of revolutionary change in the biomedical sciences. The development of the germ theory of disease and the establishment of fields such as bacteriology, pharmacology, and physiological chemistry laid the groundwork for significant advances in medicine and pharmacy. The extraordinary growth of the biomedical sciences also made its impact felt on medical and pharmaceutical education. 1 The amount and level of science in the pharmaceutical curriculum in the United States before the Civil War was not very high. Glenn Sonnedecker has concluded, for example, that the materia medica and pharmacy lectures in this period often had "little scientific content, in the sense of the theoretic and systematic study of natural phenomena relating to the various phases of pharmacy." 2 In Sonnedecker's view, chemistry formed the scientific core of early American pharmaceutical education. In fact, he went so far as to say that, "for a long time chemistry was the only subject taught in American pharmacy schools that can even be called scientific." Nevertheless, even chemistry was taught only through lectures. There was no laboratory instruction in any of the subjects taught in American pharmacy schools before the Civil War. 3 It was not until pharmacy schools began to become affiliated with state universities, beginning in the 1860s, that science came to play a much more important role in pharmaceutical education. The pharmacy program established at the University of Michigan in 1868, under the leadership of physician-chemist Albert Prescott, made the study of pharmacy essentially a full-time occupation for the 2 years of the curriculum. It also introduced extensive laboratory training in the basic sciences. Other schools of pharmacy eventually adopted this model, beginning with the University of Wisconsin, which established its pharmacy program in 1883. Wisconsin lured a first-rate pharmaceutical scientist to head its program. Frederick B. Power graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1874 and earned a PhD in 1880 from the University of Strassburg in Germany. Power remained at Wisconsin for 10 years, establishing the pharmacy curriculum on a firm scientific footing and beginning a tradition of scientific research in the pharmacy program through his own investigations in phytochemistry. His successor, Edward Kremers, continued and even expanded upon the scientific direction that Power had given the program. 4 Glenn Sonnedecker has examined the experimental work associated with American schools of pharmacy in the 19th century. In the …