Talk:History of pharmacy

Pharmacy v medicine, history v historiography
There seems to be a near edit war going over the wording of the lede. As far as I can tell, there are two issues. First, the word "history" can have at least three meanings: a) what actually happened, b) what was written about what happened, and c) the systematical study of written records. To avoid confusion, the word "historiography" is often used to describe historical writing as opposed to actual events.

In the lede the word "history" has been used in the sense of "written history" and thus historiography, but in way that was confusing and misleading. That kind of information probably shouldn't go in the lede, since it's a technical detail. If the word history is used in the lede, it should refer to pharmacy itself, not its historiography.

The second issue is about pharmacy as a science or practice independent of medicine. In England the separation between pharmacy and medicine took place in the early 1500s. King Henry VIII was an apothecary and signed the law that made the practice of apothecary separate from medicine. However, if we're talking about ancient times, we need to be careful about semantics and translation. I'm not sure quite how this should be handled, but it looks like there's edit warring in the lede over this as well, and that much of it is just poor choice of words. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

History of pharmacy
The Modern age 37.111.222.52 (talk) 16:27, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

History of pharmacy and background
The history of pharmacy as an independent science dates back to the first third of the 19th century. Before then, pharmacy evolved from antiquity as part of medicine. The history of pharmacy coincides well with the history of medicine, but it's important that there is a distinction between the two topics. Pharmaceuticals is one of the most-researched fields in the academic industry, but the history surrounding that particular topic is sparse compared to the impact its made world-wide. Before the advent of pharmacists, there existed apothecaries that worked alongside priests and physicians in regard to patient care. 112.79.68.55 (talk) 05:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Monday - Spring 2024 HIST 401
— Assignment last updated by Honucha (talk) 17:57, 8 April 2024 (UTC)