Pharmaceutical Education

PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION, a complex of disciplines constituting the content of instruction in pharmaceutical schools (colleges and technical schools) aimed at preparing personnel for the discovery, recognition, preparation, storage, and dispensing of medicinal agents. The first beginnings of pharmaceutical education in Russia are found in the Apothecary Order (see), where apothecary and medicinal apprentices were trained. With the establishment of hospitals, training was conducted in hospital pharmacies. Those trained in these pharmacies, after an examination in the presence of the 'city physician,' were released with the title of 'geselles.' In 1736, a 'regulation' was issued on field pharmacies and on the permission to 'appoint the children of people of various ranks, serving in the medical department,' such as: children of runners, soldiers, literate in reading and writing, as well as botany and 'pharmacy' in medical gardens and main pharmacies. In 1784, it was permitted for apothecary apprentices to enter the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical School for the improvement of their sciences, and the certificates of this school were equated with those of hospitals. Pharmaceutical education was also conducted in apothecary gardens. The rules of 1838 on 'examinations of medical, veterinary, and pharmaceutical officials' established the following academic degrees: apothecary assistant - pharmacopoeus auxiliarius, provisor - pharmacopoeus substitutus, and apothecary - pharmacopoeus. In 1845, 'imperially approved' rules on the examination of physicians, pharmacists, and veterinarians were issued, establishing three pharmaceutical degrees: apothecary assistant, provisor, and master of pharmacy. Subsequently, the right to examine for pharmaceutical degrees was granted exclusively to universities and the Military Medical Academy. The aforementioned rules, included in the XIII volume of the Collection of Laws, remained in almost unchanged form until the October Revolution. The procedure for obtaining pharmaceutical education was as follows: persons entering pharmacies for training received the title of apothecary apprentice; these persons had to have an education not lower than a 4-class gymnasium. After 3 years of service in a pharmacy, the apothecary apprentice was examined at the university and received the title of apothecary assistant. The latter, after 3 years of practical experience in a pharmacy, was admitted to 2-year provisor courses at the medical faculty of universities and, upon passing a special state examination, received the title of provisor. The academic degree of master of pharmacy could be attained by a provisor upon passing the established examinations and defending a dissertation. The title of provisor was the highest pharmaceutical degree, and the degree of master was the highest. Since, due to the development (in the West) of large industry at the end of the 19th century, the pharmacy lost its scientific and production functions, no knowledge other than practical skills in prescription writing could be obtained in a pharmacy. Other branches of pharmacy (see) in Russia also did not develop, and therefore there was no great need for highly qualified personnel. The assimilation of university knowledge often proved beyond the capacity of a person who had served many years in a pharmacy, where even those extremely scanty general education knowledge possessed by the apothecary apprentice were lost. For all these reasons, the entire system of pharmaceutical education became a fiction, examinations became a formality, and educated pharmacists were counted in units. The abnormality of this situation was long recognized. Thus, the first pharmaceutical congress (1866) touched upon this question, and since then all pharmaceutical congresses and conferences and pharmaceutical press (pharmacy owners and employees) have incessantly insisted on the necessity of raising the general and special education of pharmacists. This question was also dealt with by the Pirogov congresses (VII, IX, and XI) and other congresses. In reality, everything remained as before, and only after the October Revolution was the entire old order (fully corresponding to the private-capitalist pharmacy, needing cheap labor) fundamentally changed. Apprenticeship, preliminary experience, and provisor courses were abolished. 3-year technical schools (institutes on Ukraine) (previously 2-year schools) were established for the preparation of independent workers for pharmacies and other pharmaceutical institutions. Persons aged 17 to 30 with knowledge equivalent to a 7-year program are admitted to the technical schools or departments of medical technicians. Technical schools or departments of medical technicians exist in the cities: Arkhangelsk, Baku, Batumi, Gorky, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Kalinin, Kazan, Kaluga, Klintsy, Leningrad, Mogilev, Moscow, Orel, Penza, Perm, Rostov n/D., Ryazan, Semipalatinsk, Stalingrad, Tashkent, Tiflis, Tomsk, Ufa, Frunze, Khabarovsk, Erivan, Yalta. Pharmaceutical workers are currently recruited from persons who have completed these educational institutions. For the preparation of higher pharmaceutical personnel, pharmaceutical institutes and faculties (Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Odessa, Tiflis) were organized; however, due to a number of reasons, these institutions did not receive proper development and were liquidated. Soon the abnormality of this situation became apparent, and faculties were reorganized at two medical institutes. Pharmaceutical faculties with a four-year course of instruction admit persons with knowledge equivalent to a 9-year program and prepare analytical pharmacists, forensic chemists, pharmacognosists-commodity experts, and teachers. Faculties exist at the Leningrad, Tiflis, and Perm medical institutes. At the Moscow Medical-Pharmaceutical Combine, a pharmaceutical university functions without separation from production, to which persons who have completed a pharmaceutical technical school after 3 years of practical experience are admitted. In Ukraine, the preparation of pharmacists is conducted by institutes with a 3 1/2-year course, existing in Kharkov, Kiev, and Dnepropetrovsk, to which persons with a complete secondary education are admitted. These institutes prepare specialists for all branches of the pharmaceutical business. In addition, workers for the pharmaceutical industry are also trained at the Institute of Fine Chemical Technology in Moscow. The following special subjects are included in the curriculum of pharmaceutical faculties: elements of higher mathematics, physics, inorganic chemistry, fundamentals of general biology, qualitative analysis, botany, technology of medicinal forms with pharmaceutical production equipment, quantitative analysis, organic chemistry, mineralogy with crystallography, human anatomy, synthesis according to organic chemistry, human physiology, experimental hygiene with a course in military hygiene, physical and colloidal chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacognosy with microparmacognostic analysis, fundamentals of microbiology with technical microbiology, history of pharmacy, organization of public health and the pharmaceutical business, industrial toxicology, pharmaceutical analysis, galenic production, pharmacology with prescription writing, social hygiene with sanitary statistics, sanitary-chemical defense, and a number of special subjects depending on the chosen specialty.