Tag Archives: pharmacists

Middle Ages, Middlemarch, and the mid-twentieth century: Idealism at risk

November 1, 2022

William Marshall Tucson, AZ   From Stories of a Country Doctor (1891) by Willis P. King, p. 155. Philadelphia: Hummel and Parmele. Via Internet Archive. Public domain. The dissatisfaction with modern medicine felt by both patients and doctors occurs despite unprecedented advances and successes in disease treatment and prevention. Corporate Medicine (huge healthcare conglomerates that […]

Nicholas Culpeper and Herbal Medicine

September 30, 2019

JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig. 1 Nicholas Culpeper Apart from crude measures such as amputation and surgery without anesthesia, most medical treatments were ineffective until the twentieth century. Herbal remedies dominated from the time of ancient Hindu and Chinese cultures. Herbals were used by the Greek scholar Theophrastus (371 – 287 BC) and by […]

Apothecaries vs. physicians

October 4, 2018

Two paintings of pharmacies are shown here: a Medical practitioner taking a lady’s pulse in a pharmacy (Wellcome Library) by Emili Casals I Camps (1882) and The Apothecary by Pietro Longhi, from the Accademia in Venice (1752). The man taking the woman’s pulse in the Casals painting is probably a physician, and the one looking […]

Partners in healing: An early renaissance painting depicting the partnership of the divine with the physicians Cosmas and Damian

August 21, 2018

Susan Brunn Puett J. David Puett Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States     St. Cosmas and St. Damian by Matteo di Pacino (painted 1370-1375). Located in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Although the original location of the painting is not known, it was probably commissioned by the Guild of […]