‘Chemist or Chemist?’ in Scale Paper

March-April, 1963

Medical: New Zealand Collection Journals

Auckland Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

As this portion of the article reveals, the difference between a chemist and a pharmaceutical chemist, or pharmacist, and the titles that should be given to each has long been a matter of debate. During the Middle Ages, chemists and druggists in England provided medicines to physicians and apothecaries who then supplied medicines to the public. Over time, however, druggists and chemists began to supply medicines directly to the public. In the early twentieth century, science graduates who had studied pure chemistry complained that those practising retail pharmacy should not call themselves chemists. The terms pharmaceutical chemist and then pharmacist became more generally used.