Abstract

From the beginning, next to their essential function of preparing drugs pharmacies also served as educational institutions, in particular for the instruction of their own rising generation. Especially between 1750 and 1850 pharmacies in addition were engaged in scientific research. It were basically experimental‐analytic chemistry and after 1800 mainly phytochemistry which inspired numerous apothecaries to do corresponding work in their laboratories. For many of those scientifically ambitious pharmacists, however, pharmacies were merely a starting point in their professional career. More or less rapidly, they turned to other places of activity which were organizationally, socially, and intellectually of higher standards (e.g. academies or universities). There, they were better able to realize their research interests frequently roused and shaped in the pharmacies. When around 1850 chemistry as an autonomous discipline definitely was established at the universities and competition became increasingly apparent through the rising chemical industry, the former meaning and function of pharmacies as places of scientific research disappeared more and more and was completely lost about 1900.