Pharmacy History
Flashback Friday: ‘compulsory use of poison bottles’ recommended
We take a look at the days when “any one” could sell arsenic-saturated biscuits with no poison warnings It’s January 1905, and the pharmacists of Australia’s youthful Commonwealth have medicines …
Flashback Friday: ‘Gestapo methods in our midst’
“No agreement with the Federal Government as a contracting party is worth the paper on which it is written,” thundered an AJP correspondent in 1945, as shots were fired within …
Flashback Friday: Black heroin and colour TV
Whether you were ready for colour TV or not, we started 1975 with some lurid crime reporting – including on the new scourge of black heroin “The countries which seem …
Flashback Friday: enough ‘wailings and gnashings’ of the teeth!
Snake oil, Prohibition, poisonings and pessimism… we take a look at pharmacy a century past What was happening in pharmacy 100 years ago? We began the January, 1925 edition on …
‘Use of the machines leads to the distribution of habit-forming drugs’
A pharmacist hit hard by a flood disaster, a slew of strychnine poisonings and the spectre of medicines vending machines all made headlines in the 30s We opened our December, …
Renowned pharmacist’s act, and new Pharmacy Acts
The Sixties are in full swing, and here’s the biggest thing since The Beatles: new Pharmacy Acts from one side of the country to the other “The passing of a …
Managing the patents of alien enemies
We began the November, 1914 edition with some exciting news: “After a lapse of some sixteen years a new British Pharmacopoeia has made its appearance” And it was last-minute news …
Coalition would ‘free’ pharmacists from clerical work
“The way we handle prescriptions is 20 years out of date”, opposition health spokesperson says The year is 1984 and the Coalition wants to “free pharmacists from clerical duties” to …
‘Between the two there was no compromise’
The AJP goes back to the 1950s with historic legislation being passed in Victoria, to allow Friendly Societies to dispense – plus price-cutting, antibiotic stewardship and the likely outlawing of …
‘Friday nights are a waste of time’
Pharmacists told us they were barely breaking even with the introduction of new trading hours, while in the world of hospital pharmacy, we looked at the new technology of heart …
‘Rough on rats’ killer sentenced
It’s October 1894, and the AJP reports on a Victorian serial killer – and the pharmacist who gave evidence against her “The trial of the wholesale poisoner, Martha Needle, for …
Pharmacy’s ‘wave of violence’
Drug “experimenters” fuel crime, salaries plummet in comparison to other professionals, and the vexed issue of penalty rates arises – is the sector having a 70s Summer? Many of the …