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Landmarks  of  Pharmacy. 
( Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    October,  1913. 
The  Greek  words  referred  to  have  given  rise  to  our  present 
words  "  Pharmacy "  and  its  associated  words,  as  "  pharmacist," 
"  pharmaceutical,"  etc.,  and  the  same  root  has  produced  the  French 
"  pharmacien,"  the  Portuguese  "  pharmacia  "  and  the  Spanish  and 
Italian  "  farmacia,"  having  an  equivalent  meaning  to  pharmacy. 
The  newer  use  of  the  word  "  pharmacology  "  to  include  the  sum 
of  scientific  knowledge  concerning  drugs  is  therefore  founded 
upon  correct  etymological  principles  but  finds  few  users  and  fewer 
adherents  because  of  its  more  widespread  use  as  a  word  equivalent 
to  "  pharmacodynamics,"  the  study  of  the  action  of  drugs. 
In  Rome,  at  the  same  period  when  the  "  Apothec  "  was  the 
warehouse  for  drugs,  there  was  no  single  word  describing  the 
practitioner  of  pharmacy.  As  in  Greece,  the  Seplasarii  were  oint- 
ment makers  while  the  Pigmentarii  were  sellers  of  dyes  and  colors. 
As  an  interesting  sidelight  in  comparison  with  present  day  con- 
ditions it  is  said  that  Pliny  reproached  some  of  his  rivals  with 
purchasing  their  medicines  from  the  Seplasarii  without  knowing 
anything  of  their  composition.  Seplasia  was  the  name,  however, 
for  the  place  where  drugs  were  sold,  as  was  also  Medicina,  while 
"  medicamentus "  meant  either  a  medicine  or  a  poison  and  the 
"  medicamentarius  "  was  not  only  one  who  prepared  and  admin- 
istered the  drugs  ordered  by  the  physician,  but  was  also  a  poisoner 
(as  in  the  Greek  "  pharmakopeus  ") .  The  physicians  of  that  date 
evidently  confined  their  activities  almost  entirely  to  diagnosing  and 
prescribing,  as  we  find  as  another  subclass  similar  to  the  medica- 
mentarii  the  "  vulnerarii  "  or  those  who  treated  wounds,  equiva- 
lent in  a  minor  sense  to  the  surgeon  of  to-day. 
There  were  also  at  that  time  "  confectionarii  "  or  compounders 
of  medicines  (the  word  "  confection "  from  "  con "  and 
"  facere,"  to  put  together,  is  also  used  sometimes  in  this  sense) 
and  "  stationarii  "  who  supplied  the  compounders  with  their  raw 
materials  and  were  therefore  a  subclass  of  wholesalers,  standing 
between  the  "  apotheca  "  or  warehouseman  and  the  "  confection- 
arius "  or  compounder.  Longfellow,  in  his  Golden  Legend,  re- 
fers to  the  latter  as  follows : 
"  To  report  if  any  confectionarius 
Mingles  his  drugs  with  matters  various."  . 
While  the  Arabs  are  responsible  for  the  separation  of  pharmacy 
from  its  other  associations  and  its  elevation  to  the  plane  of  a  dig- 
nified profession  (from  which,  by  the  way,  it  later  descended,  as 
