American hospital pharmacy from the Colonial period to the 1930s

Abstract

The history of hospital pharmacy in the United States from the Colonial period to the 1930s is explored. America's first hospital pharmacist was Jonathan Roberts, hired in 1752. Like most other early hospital apothecaries, Roberts was an apprentice physician. His successor, John Morgan, proposed that the practices of medicine and pharmacy be separate. By 1811 the New York Hospital had a full-time pharmaceutical practitioner. The niche available for hospital pharmacy was small during the nineteenth century because most Americans were treated at home. Two pioneers who advanced the profession during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were Charles Rice and Martin Wilbert. Hospital pharmacists were sought out during the Civil War because of their experience in manufacturing drug preparations and as buyers. Immigration after the Civil War soon doubled the number of hospitals. The post-Civil War expansion of hospitals also coincided with the reform movement in nursing and the rise of scientific medicine. Hospital pharmacists became indispensable as supply masters and manufacturers. Physicians demanded professional pharmaceutical services for handling more complex therapies. Administrators learned that it was more economical to fill inpatient prescriptions inhouse. While community pharmacy had long since abandoned manufacturing and some compounding, hospital pharmacists retained these roles. However, the image of pharmacists as corner druggists was hard to shake. During the 1920s voices called for hospital pharmacists to organize. Edward Spease led in aligning schools of pharmacy with hospitals. In 1927 the first hospital pharmacy internship program was begun. A section for hospital pharmacists within the American Pharmaceutical Association was established in 1936, and the first state associations were founded during the 1920s. By the end of the 1930s, the stage was set for the national movement that followed. By the 1930s, American hospital pharmacists had reached the critical mass necessary for group identity on a national level.