Pharmacy Shop

PHARMACY SHOP, a name given before the October Revolution to private trading enterprises engaged in the retail sale of medicines, dressings, medical equipment, perfumery, cosmetics, and so on. Pharmacy shops were prohibited from dispensing medicinal substances that had undergone pharmaceutical processing, except in the original packaging of pharmaceutical laboratories, factories, or pharmacies. However, due to weak supervision, pharmacy shops widely practiced the sale of ready-made medicines not in original packaging and even the manufacture and dispensing of medicines according to prescriptions. After the October Revolution, pharmacy shops were liquidated. With the transition of pharmaceutical trade to a commercial accounting system in 1922, pharmacy shops were restored, receiving the name "sanitary and hygiene shops." On the basis of the circular of the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR of June 11, 1925, which entered primarily into the legislation of other union republics, retail non-pharmaceutical trade in medicines is permitted only from shops belonging to state institutions and enterprises. The aforementioned shops are permitted to dispense a) ready-made medical preparations approved by the People's Commissariat of Health for dispensing without a doctor's prescription; b) all medicinal substances dispensed from pharmacies by manual sale, but only in original packaging; c) sanitary items, hygiene items, and items for the care of patients, dressings, and medical instruments. The sale of these last items is permitted from any trading enterprise.