Historical and legal prerequisites of the formation of the basis of pharmaceutical activity in the Ancient world

Abstract

The article examines the historical and legal foundations of the formation of the foundations of pharmaceutical activity in the ancient world, which determined the specifics of its further development. The topicality of the topic is due to the fact that the effective legal support of pharmaceutical activity as the most accessible source of obtaining the necessary medicines and medical products for citizens in the conditions of a pandemic and war has become extremely important. But in order to predict the direction of modernization of any legal phenomenon, it is necessary to first of all study the conditions of its occurrence and stages of development. Therefore, in order to determine directions for improving pharmaceutical legislation, it is considered necessary to investigate the prerequisites for the emergence of pharmaceutical activity as an object of its regulation.To achieve the goal, the author used a wide methodological toolkit of legal science, including methods of hypothetical and reverse analysis and synthesis, casual analogy, extrapolation, comparison, logical and axiomatic methods.According to the results of the research, it is summarized that pharmacy (the prototype of modern pharmaceutical activity) originated as an element of ancient medicine and began to develop in its composition until it was separated into an independent type of activity. This period in the history of pharmacy can be conditionally divided into three major stages. The first, and the longest, begins with the appearance of man and ends with the emergence of writing in early civilizations. We have not found any documentary sources that would indicate that the provision of medical (including pharmaceutical) assistance during this period was normalized. The second period lasts several millennia and ends in the 1st millennium BC, when medicine, and with it pharmacy, first became the object of scientific attention. The third period marks the flowering of ancient medicine, including pharmacy, and is characterized by the first attempts to standardize such activities by the norms of Roman law. This stage ends in parallel with the fall of Rome in the 5th century. not. It was during this period that the foundations of pharmacy were laid, which in many ways determined the process of the further separation of pharmacy into an independent type of activity.