Pharmacy is the health profession that
links the health sciences with
the chemical
sciences and it is
charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs. The word derives
from the Greek: φάρμακον (pharmakon), meaning "drug" or "medicine" (the
earliest form of the word is theMycenaean Greek pa-ma-ko,
attested in Linear B syllabic script).
The scope of
pharmacy practice includes more traditional roles such as compounding and
dispensing medications, and it also includes more modern services related to health care, including clinical services, reviewing
medications for safety and efficacy, and providing drug information. Pharmacists, therefore, are the experts on drug therapy and
are the primary health professionals who optimize medication use to provide
patients with positive health outcomes.
An establishment in
which pharmacy (in the first sense) is practiced is called a pharmacy, chemist's or drug store. In the United States and
Canada, drug stores commonly sell not only medicines, but also miscellaneous
items such as candy (sweets), cosmetics,
and magazines,
as well as light refreshments or groceries.
The word pharmacy is derived from its root word pharma which was a term used since the
15th–17th centuries. In addition to pharma responsibilities, the pharma offered
general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by
other specialist practitioners, such as surgery andmidwifery.
The pharma (as it was referred to) often operated through a retail shop which,
in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco and patent medicines.
The pharmas also used many other herbs not listed.
In its investigation
of herbal and chemical ingredients, the work of the pharma may be regarded as a
precursor of the modern sciences of chemistryand pharmacology, prior to the formulation of the scientific
method.
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