Thursday, April 8, 2021

Compounded

Educational requirements have changed a lot in the past 100 years. Once you became a master of your trade after years of supervised training and hands-on experience as an apprentice. Now you need years of education before you can get a master.

The other thing to realize is that pharmacies and/or dispensaries are also different now from then. Pharmacists didn't buy vast amounts of prepared prescription drugs, but made many themselves -- like a modern compounding pharmacy. Capsules make it all easier. Believe it or not, you can still buy empty capsules on amazon.com for making your own easy to swallow medicines.

I believe pharmacists in 1925 Ohio did not have to have either a degree or even a certificate. You had to pass the exam for the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy, but many simply studied for years within their family pharmacies as apprentices.

OSU decided to open a dispensary in 1921 so supervised students could get practical experience of creating medicines, and patients would benefit from the reduced costs. Supervision is where it failed. While a pharmacist was frequently there, it was not always the case.

Charley's and David's deaths helped change modern pharmacology. OSU initially offered two programs; an optional two-year course leading to a “Certificate of Pharmaceutical Chemist” or a four-year course leading to a “Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy.”

After the poisonings, the dispensary was shut down and the College of Pharmacy ceased to offer its two-year certificate, requiring all students to complete a four-year program. I believe it was the first in the country to do so. This would not be a requirement enforced by all colleges of pharmacy within the United States until 1932.

Dr. Robert Buerki, professor emeritus at OSU, wrote about the poisonings for a paper, Prescription for Death: The 1925 Ohio State Poisoning Case, presented at the annual meeting at The Ohio Academy of Medical History in 2012. In it he wrote:
"Universities have long institutional memories," Buerki wrote. "The dispensary had been closed permanently; nearly three-quarters of a century would elapse before the University would permit -- in 1999 -- the establishment of the University Health Connection, an interprofessional primary care clinic located in the College of Pharmacy."

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