46th International Congress for the History of Pharmacy (2024) (стр. 109-115)
АУТОР / AUTHOR(S): Anita Magowska 
DOI: 10.46793/ISHP46.109M
САЖЕТАК / ABSTRACT:
The paper focuses on the beginnings of pharmacy modernisation, i.e., introducing statistical methods into pharmacotherapy assessment to meet the individual and population’s health needs. The work is based on 19th-century archival records, medical press, doctoral theses on cholera, pharmacotherapy textbooks and pharmacopoeias. The study covers 1817-1883, i.e. from the first cholera pandemic to the discovery of the bacterial aetiology of this disease by Robert Koch.
In the 19th century, a high toll of death from cholera forced doctors to search for effective and safe anti-choleric drugs. They learned for the first time how the drugs they prescribed affected large populations of patients. Statistics proved that some
anti-choleric drugs are deadly harmful and must be withdrawn from medical textbooks, pharmacopoeias and official drug registers. Despite the harmfulness of opium, calomel, and other drugs that were popular in anti-cholera treatment in the 19th century, the content of therapy textbooks remained unchanged until the end of the century. This persistence of harmful drugs in the textbooks and treatment regimens indicated the urgent need for regulatory changes, such as the approval of pharmacopoeias by pharmaceutical societies instead of medical boards.
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
cholera, cholera epidemic, harmful drugs, iatrogenic illness, mortality
ПРОЈЕКАТ / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The research was funded as a whole by the National Science Centre, Poland (UMO-2021/41/B/HS3/00594).
ЛИТЕРАТУРА / REFERENCES: