50 Fun Facts About Pharmacy

The first pharmacies, or drug stores, were established in 754 in which city?

They arrived under the Abbasid Caliphate during the Islamic Golden Age; Avicenna later described some 700 preparations.

Which emperor's 1240 decree formally separated the professions of physician and apothecary?

The split is still the basis of the doctor-prescribes, pharmacist-dispenses model.

The oldest continuously operating pharmacy in its original premises, from at least 1422, is in which city?

The Town Hall Pharmacy sits on Tallinn's main square; Dubrovnik's Franciscan pharmacy dates from 1317.

The pharmacy claimed as the world's oldest, set up in 1221 in Santa Maria Novella, is in which city?

It now houses a perfume museum.

Which Greek physician wrote the five-volume De Materia Medica, covering more than 600 plants?

He also coined the term materia medica.

The Ebers Papyrus, a record of ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge, dates from about when?

Even earlier, Sumerian cuneiform tablets recorded prescriptions.

The prescription symbol Rx comes from the Latin word 'recipe', meaning what?

Medieval prescriptions began with the physician telling the apothecary to 'take' certain materials and compound them.

A show globe, the coloured-liquid glass vessel once displayed by druggists, served much the same purpose as what?

It let illiterate customers find the apothecary; elsewhere the mortar and pestle was the usual symbol.

Apothecaries' herbal and chemical work is regarded as a precursor to which modern sciences?

They also gave general medical advice and did work now done by surgeons and obstetricians.

Aspirin's precursor, salicin, comes from the bark of which tree?

It has been used for its health effects for at least 2,400 years.

Which German company first produced pure acetylsalicylic acid in 1897 and named it Aspirin?

Felix Hoffmann usually gets the credit, though Arthur Eichengrün may deserve it.

Aspirin is not generally given to children with viral infections because of the risk of what?

It remains a workhorse for pain, fever, inflammation and blood thinning in adults.

Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by which Scottish physician?

He named it in March 1929 to avoid repeating 'mould broth filtrate'; Florey and Chain purified it at Oxford in 1940.

Who shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for penicillin?

Fleming's student Cecil Paine had used it on an eye infection as early as 1930.

Insulin was first isolated in 1921 by Banting and Best in the Toronto laboratory of which professor?

Banting shared his Nobel money with Best; Macleod shared his with Collip.

Banting won the 1923 Nobel Prize for insulin at what age, still a record for the medicine prize?

He shared it with John Macleod.

Morphine, isolated from opium in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, is named after whom?

It is believed to be the first medicinal alkaloid ever isolated from a plant.

Quinine, the malaria drug, was first isolated in 1820 from the bark of which tree native to Peru?

British colonials in India reputedly mixed the bitter tonic with gin, inventing the gin and tonic.

William Withering identified the heart drug digitoxin in the 1780s from which plant?

He noticed a dropsy patient improve after a folk remedy and traced the effect to the purple foxglove.

Ibuprofen was discovered in 1961 by Stewart Adams and John Nicholson while working for which British chemist?

It was first sold as Brufen; Adams reportedly first tested it on his own hangover.

Paracetamol is known in the United States by which name?

Overdose is the leading cause of acute liver failure in many countries.

The 1982 Tylenol murders, in which capsules were laced with cyanide, led directly to what?

At least seven people died; over-the-counter powder-filled capsules were abandoned.

Thalidomide, sold over the counter in West Germany from 1957, was kept off the US market by which FDA reviewer?

More than 10,000 infants worldwide were harmed by the drug taken for morning sickness.

Thalidomide was approved in 2006 to treat which cancer, among other conditions?

The FDA approved it for multiple myeloma in 2006; it is also used for graft-versus-host disease and complications of leprosy.

Which 1937 mass poisoning by a drug made with a toxic solvent prompted the US Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act?

Franklin Roosevelt signed the new law in June 1938.

Which US president signed the Pure Food and Drug Act, the 'Wiley Act', in 1906?

It was the foundation of what became the FDA.

The word 'placebo' is Latin for what?

Its negative twin, nocebo, means 'I shall harm'.

A generic drug may be sold once what happens to the original brand-name drug?

The FDA requires generics to be bioequivalent to the brand.

Compounding pharmacies exist to do what?

That might mean a liquid instead of a tablet, a special dose, or leaving out an inactive ingredient.

Coca-Cola was first sold on 8 May 1886 at Jacob's Pharmacy in which city, for five cents a glass?

Inventor John Pemberton was a pharmacist seeking a substitute for his morphine habit.

Pemberton's 1886 Coca-Cola began as a non-alcoholic version of which tonic he had registered in 1885?

He reworked it when Atlanta and Fulton County went dry in 1886.

Pepsi, invented in 1893 by pharmacist Caleb Bradham, was originally sold under what name?

It became Pepsi-Cola in 1898 because it contained the digestive enzyme pepsin.

Dr Pepper was formulated by pharmacist Charles Alderton in the 1880s at a drugstore in which Texas town?

Customers at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store ordered it by asking for 'a Waco'.

Walgreens was founded in 1901 by pharmacist Charles Walgreen in which city?

It is now the second-largest US chain, behind CVS.

CVS, founded in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1963, originally stood for what?

It is now the largest US pharmacy chain by locations, headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

Britain's Boots the Chemists was founded in Nottingham in which year by John Boot?

Its labs later discovered ibuprofen, and it merged with Walgreens in 2014.

Pfizer discovered sildenafil (Viagra) in 1989 while researching a treatment for what?

It is also used for pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Statins lower cholesterol by inhibiting which enzyme?

Atorvastatin, simvastatin and rosuvastatin are among the family.

Warfarin's anticoagulant effect can be reversed with which of these?

It works by blocking the enzyme that reactivates vitamin K1, and dosing is checked with regular INR tests.

The word 'vaccine' comes from Edward Jenner's Latin term Variolae vaccinae, meaning what?

He described cowpox protecting against smallpox in his 1798 Inquiry.

The discoverer of penicillin found which enzyme in his own nasal discharge in 1922?

He named the bacterium it dissolved Micrococcus lysodeikticus.

Nicolaes Tulp, the surgeon in Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson, wrote the first pharmacopoeia of which city in 1636?

Valerius Cordus's Nuremberg dispensatory of the 1540s was among the earliest such books.

What are the tasks of a pharmacy technician?

They support pharmacists and other health professionals.

Pharmacogenomics is the study of what?

Pharmacoinformatics is another newer discipline aimed at faster, safer drug discovery.

The word 'pharmacy' traces back to the Greek 'pharmakon', which meant drug, spell and what else?

The English word arrived via Old French 'farmacie' and Medieval Latin 'pharmacia'.

Which symbol identifies pharmacies in France, the UK, Italy, Spain and India?

North America favours the mortar and pestle, while Germany and Austria use a red stylised 'A' for Apotheke.

A red stylised letter 'A' marks pharmacies in Germany and Austria; what word does it stand for?

Apotheke shares the same Greek root as the English word 'apothecary'.

The Bowl of Hygieia is used on its own as the pharmacy symbol mainly in which country?

The Dutch also had the 'Gaper', a carved gaping head outside drugstores, which is now increasingly rare.

Which ancient Indian Ayurvedic treatise is the earliest known compilation of medicinal substances?

It is attributed to Sushruta in the 6th century BC, though the earliest surviving text dates from the 3rd or 4th century AD.

Which Chinese tomb site, sealed in 168 BC, yielded the manuscript 'Recipes for 52 Ailments'?

It predates the Shennong Bencao Jing, the earliest known Chinese pharmacy manual from the 1st century AD.