American Institute of the History of Pharmacy

11/14/2025

Although Catholic Sister nurses were operating in North America since the eighteenth century, waves of immigration from regions with significant Catholic populations in the nineteenth century would dramatically increase their numbers. There was a perpetual demand for nurses throughout this period, and Sisters played a major role in alleviating this shortage. During the cholera outbreaks of the early nineteenth century, the devastation of the American Civil War, and the endemic health problems stemming from poverty and dangerous working conditions, Sisters would provide their labor, oftentimes for free or a very low fee. As a result, they obtained a reputation for willingness to do work that was dangerous and difficult.

Opinions of these Sisters varied depending on time and place. The anti-Catholic sentiment of Protestant America, the immigrant status of many Sisters, and the willingness to rub elbows with the lower-classes meant that the work these Sisters performed was not held in high esteem by groups such as the Protestant elite. Many firsthand accounts of Civil War veterans express admiration for the Sisters’ work ethic and discipline, and many are dismissive of their competence in comparison to men.

Despite the mixed and sometimes hostile perception of Catholic Sisters, they played a key role in growing the institution of the hospital in the United States. With minimal backing from the Catholic church, Sisters often took on the responsibility of fundraising to construct and maintain hospitals across the country. Oftentimes, Sisters managed and administered the hospitals they founded, a role which was uncommon for women to hold. These hospitals were known for their tendency to accept a wide variety of people, including non-Catholics. However, like most hospitals in the United States at this time the vast majority were still segregated by race, although there are some instances of Sisters admitting Black patients.

In the late nineteenth century, the professionalization movement took off in the United States, which aimed to professionalize, standardize, and increase regulations on American medical institutions. Many Sisters expressed opposition to this since the increased regulations it brought meant that it would be harder for people without college degrees to work at hospitals. However, some Sisters would embrace the movement, and in many states the first women to obtain degrees in pharmacy were Sisters. Concurrently, women were obtaining increased access to medical fields, so Sister pharmacists would often work alongside non-Sister pharmacists. By the 1950s, several Sisters would become prominent contributors to pharmaceutical research, development, and education.

Although the groups discussed in this article share many religious and organizational principles, the groups themselves were incredibly diverse in terms of composition and ideology. Some groups allowed women from marginalized communities to strengthen their bonds with one another. On the other hand, some Sisters would play a significant role in the cultural assimilation of Native Americans at Catholic boarding schools. Sister nurses would allow many women of disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue labor that went beyond the domestic sphere, but they also reinforced patriarchal ideas of what roles women ought to play in their rhetoric. In sum, their legacy is complex. Their contributions to pharmaceutical practice, however, should not be forgotten.

This Dose of History was brought to you by AIHP Intern, Leo Ryan.

Images are from the Edward Kremers Reference Files Digital Collection and use the image of Sister nurses to advertise a health tonic.

11/05/2025

In honor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s commitment to the Ho-Chunk Nation, as represented by the Our Shared Future Heritage Marker, schools, colleges, and units across campus are hosting the Heritage Marker and engaging faculty, staff, students, and the community in a variety of educational activities to spark learning and deepen understanding about the Ho-Chunk Nation and other regional Indigenous history and culture.

The objects in this digital exhibit, mostly from the collections of the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy and the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, document the ways in which drug companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers have misappropriated Native and Indigenous imagery, customs, and beliefs to market their products—particularly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Please be advised that this exhibit includes stylized and stereotypical images of Native Americans based on the prejudiced conceptions held by white American culture. Drug companies frequently used simplistic and degrading misrepresentations of Native/Indigenous people to advertise their products to consumers.

These uncomfortable artifacts and difficult images help us to confront, acknowledge, and understand how white Americans have co-opted, misappropriated, and exploited Native/Indigenous culture, particularly in regard to drugs, medicines, and healthcare.

Indigenous peoples in North America have long used medicinal plants and botanicals to treat illnesses and diseases. White American society adopted some native plants for therapeutic purposes and also came to strongly associate medicinal plants and natural medicines with Indigenous cultures. Drug companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers, in turn, capitalized on these beliefs and co-opted Native and Indigenous imagery and iconography to market drugs and medicines containing plants and natural products. Drug companies often relied on these misrepresentations and misappropriations of Native Americans and Indigenous cultures to brand their products as “natural” and safe for therapeutic purposes.

Note: Throughout this exhibit, please click on any picture to read complete descriptive information and/or to see a larger version of the image.

Funding provided by a University of Wisconsin–Madison Wisconsin Experience and the Our Shared Future Heritage Marker Educational Initiative Grant; the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy; and the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy.

https://aihp.omeka.net/exhibits/show/heritagemarker/native-medicine-plants

10/28/2025

AIHP Executive Director Lucas Richert was involved with a recent event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. AIHP was proud to share some amazing historical artifacts and insights!

10/20/2025

For our next Dose of History, we have another article from our intern, Leo Ryan.

From the 1930s to the 1980s, ads for drugs were aimed almost exclusively at pharmacists and physicians. Typically, advertising was conducted in one of two ways: ads were placed in magazines directed at pharmacists or they were sold in-person by pharmaceutical marketing representatives, commonly known as detailers or detailmen. Detailers were (and still are) a fixture of the medical industry, but opinions of them have been mixed. One humorous article published in the New York Physician around 1957 features several bothersome detailman archetypes, including “The Teacher” who “understands at once that we were poorly prepared at Medical School and that we have never read a scientific journal or attended a meeting since graduation” and “The Patriot” who swears by the product he is selling to an excessive degree. However, many physicians seemed to trust detailers as providers of medical information. In 1954 one doctor wrote in The Bulletin, a magazine aimed at physicians, that detailers are “by and large, fine fellows” who provide information that a doctor would not care to read had it arrived by mail.

By the 1970s, detailmen were becoming increasingly innovative in their marketing techniques. In addition to providing information about the drugs they were selling, they also began to provide free merchandise that had the labels of certain drugs or companies printed on it. Mugs, pens, pocket protectors, and various other knickknacks were all manufactured for this purpose. This practice fell out of favor in 2009 after the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America–a prominent pharmaceutical trade organization–imposed a voluntary ban on the basis that gift giving may influence prescribing habits. However, this ban did not impose restrictions on non-physical gifts, and it remained common for detailers to provide free meals in exchange for an opportunity to pitch a certain drug, although this varied widely depending on state law.

In the 1980s, a combination of factors–including the growing prevalence of televisions in American households and a healthcare system which was increasingly prioritizing the patients’ decisions over the authority of physicians–contributed to the emergence of direct-to-consumer advertising, or DTCA. With regards to regulation this was uncharted territory, and the FDA called for a voluntary moratorium on DTCA in 1983 but did not ban it outright. An article from The Consumer, a magazine published by the FDA, provides some insight into what they were thinking. Both sides of the argument were presented: “the ads could result in a more informed consumer who would make better use of drugs”, or it could “make people ask for drugs they really don’t want or need”. According to the article some pharmaceutical companies such as Merck–which engaged in one of the first DTCA campaigns in 1981–shared this ambivalence, believing DTCA should be used “only in rare instances”.

Ultimately, the FDA resolved not to devise any additional regulations on DTCA. However, old regulations which stipulated drug advertising provide consumers with a “fair balance” of information still applied. For the most part, these requirements made DTCA unviable for many companies as they required an excessively large block of time to be purchased from television networks in order to list all the potential side effects. In the late 1990s, however, the FDA relaxed these regulations, largely due to pressure from drug manufacturers. Advertisers could now provide a summarized list of potential side effects or provide a toll-free number where prospective patients could get more information if desired. This update in legislation was followed by an explosion in DTCA: in 2005, $4.6 billion was spent on DTCA compared to just $340 million in 1995. Since 2009, the spending in DTCA has remained steady at around $6 billion annually.

10/08/2025

Happy American Pharmacist Month! Enjoy this beauty from our collection.

10/07/2025

Congrats to the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine for its podcast!

Our podcast episode in celebration of history of medicine week has arrived! “Federal Regulations: Progressive Era and Beyond” (on the CHSTM podcast “Perspectives on Science”) explores how federal policy has been set from the Progressive Era to the present day. Participants include Arthur Daemmrich, Arizona State University, Todd Olszewski, Providence College, and Lauren Thompson, Kennesaw State University.

Find the episode here: https://www.chstm.org/perspectives/2025-history-medicine-week

As you listen, join the community of historians of medicine and others talking about this episode with the hashtag . We can't wait to hear your thoughts!

10/07/2025

Check out what we've been up to on TikTok!
Follow us there at aihp1941

10/06/2025

In the fall of 1937, over 100 people died from consuming an antibiotic called “elixir of sulfanilamide”. This prompted a protracted scandal which would implicate drug manufacturers, pharmacists, and the federal government, eventually resulting in a fundamental shift in how drugs were regulated in the United States.

Although it was discovered in 1908, sulfanilamide did not become commonly available until the late 1930s. During this decade, the popularity of sulfanilamide to treat minor infections exploded, particularly in Germany where it was invented. Since it was not patented, several American manufacturers began to produce and sell the substance in 1937. Most of these solutions were approved by the American Pharmaceutical Association, but this was mostly a formality and medicines could be sold without endorsement. The rapid expansion of sulfanilamide’s use coupled with a lack of research on the substance’s toxicity prompted concern from many medical professionals, and several articles warning against its potential dangers were published by major medical journals. These concerns prompted the FDA to investigate in the summer of 1937, and a general survey of sulfanilamide manufacturers was conducted. After this investigation, an outline for the regulation of sulfanilamide was drafted.

Unfortunately, this plan was not implemented in time. In the fall of 1937, over 300 people would be hospitalized for poisoning related to “elixir of sulfanilamide”, a raspberry flavored solution produced by the pharmaceutical company S. E. Massengill. The culprit, however, was not sulfanilamide but rather diethylene glycol, a dilutant added to facilitate the dissolution of sulfanilamide. All told, 105 people across the United States would die from diethylene glycol poisoning, with the vast majority of these people being prescribed the elixir by a physician.

Several pharmaceutical trade magazines addressed the incident after its outbreak, with most of the articles deflecting blame onto either physicians or manufacturers. One article in American Druggist rebuts a claim made by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace that “pharmacists prayed God’s forgiveness on a bended knee”, stating that it was a physician who prescribed the substance and not a pharmacist. Another article which appeared in The Apothecary in November of 1937 states there is “no excuse for the use of Drethylene Glycol [sic]” except to give the manufacturer a competitive advantage. The author then goes on to defend the use of unadulterated sulfanilamide, which he describes as “one of our great discoveries in medicine”. Despite the scale and publicity of the crisis, it did not seem to seriously affect the day-to-day operations of American pharmacies and the pharmaceutical publications which were directed at store managers generally made little mention of it.

On the other hand, the general press got into a heated back-and-forth with S. E. Massengill. Most notably, Time magazine published an article in November of 1937 which quoted a federal agent saying “they [S. E. Massengill] just throw drugs together, and if they don’t explode they are placed on sale”. They also implied that S. E. Massengill was primarily a veterinarian drug manufacturer rather than human drug manufacturer, and that diethylene glycol was never before used in medicine but was a common ingredient in antifreeze. In response, S. E. Massengill accused Time of spreading misinformation and claimed they had the best track record of any pharmaceutical company in America. They then go on to cite an unspecified “body of scientists” who hold the belief that “it is probable that no chemist or pharmacologist will ever be able to determine exactly what happened”. Finally, they denied that diethylene glycol was used in antifreeze, claiming that the author of the article must have been thinking of ethylene glycol.

After an investigation which lasted several months, the FDA seemed to agree that the fault lay mainly with the manufacturers. However, since drug laws were still enforced under the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the most serious charge that could be pressed against S. E. Massengill was mislabelling. This spurred Congress–which had been considering passing food and drug legislation since Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been inaugurated–to pass the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938. This mandated that manufacturers prove the safety of their drugs before they go to market, and essentially set up the FDA as the gatekeeper of which drugs were and were not considered safe, dramatically changing the power dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry. Today, an amended version of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act is still in effect.

09/25/2025

Throughout 1905 and 1906, the American magazine Collier’s published a series of articles by journalist Samuel A. Hopkins exposing the “fraud and poison” of the American pharmaceutical industry. One practice that drew Adams’ particular ire was the manufacture and sale of patent medicines–that is, medicines sold under brand names that were freely available without the need to obtain a prescription. At the time, there was no legislation at the federal level that regulated the advertising for these medicines, and misleading or outright false claims were very common. Additionally, manufacturers were free to put intoxicants and adulterants into their medicines with no obligation to make the formula public. Hopkins argued that these medicines–often advertised to mothers of young children–were creating addicts at an early age and resulted in disastrous effects to the consumers’ health.

Hopkins’ articles, later compiled as a book titled The Great American Fraud, were written at a time when political agitation for safer food and drugs was reaching its zenith. In the late 19th and early 20th century a variety of political movements made regulatory legislation a political goal, including the Progressive movement, the women’s suffrage movement, and the Temperance movement. These groups found a friend in Harvey W. Wiley, the chief chemist of the USDA and later the head of the Bureau of Chemistry. Partially due to Wiley’s efforts, several bills which would regulate food quality were introduced between 1880 and 1905, but none would pass both the House and the Senate. In the meantime, Wiley would raise awareness of the dangers of food adulterants by running government-funded medical trials where volunteers consumed chemicals such as formaldehyde and borax. These experiments–much like Hopkins’ writings–quickly became a cultural sensation.

Physicians and pharmacists were generally in favor of stricter regulation. Several major medical publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and American Medicine published articles warning doctors against patent medicines and would express support for legislation. Additionally, some food companies such as H. J. Heinz and many smaller businesses supported the implementation of quality standards. This may seem paradoxical, but increased regulation came with noticeable benefits for businesses: healthier workers, increased consumer confidence, and a consistent set of rules which held across state lines could all result in increased profits and lower operating costs. Of course, not every business stood to gain from increased regulation. Patent medicine manufacturers lobbied hard to kill any proposed legislation, often with great success.

In 1906, the support for quality standards gained enough momentum to result in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. However, the scope of the Pure Food and Drug Act was quite limited. For the most part, the act regulated how manufacturers advertised their products rather than how they manufactured them. Producers were required to disclose any adulterants, preservatives, or narcotics they put into their products but there was no federal legislation actually preventing them from using them. The principal mechanism of enforcement was the seizure of mislabelled substances and prosecution of manufacturers. Although a significant amount of this enforcement was directed against the patent medicine industry, the prosecution had little effect as a deterrent since claims of fraud were often difficult to prosecute. These shortcomings would pave the way for more detailed legislation in subsequent decades.

09/25/2025

Check out this good read by Melissa Rossi over at the Science History Institute, "Holy Smoke" indeed.

The monks, nuns, and friars at the forefront of alchemy in early modern Europe.

09/18/2025

🚨 New Working Group Alert!
AIHP is proud to co-launch the Pharmacy History Working Group with !
💊 Explore pharmacy’s rich past—from ancient remedies to AI-driven drug development.

What’s in store:
- Monthly meetings
- Book talks & workshops
- Global, inclusive community
- Interdisciplinary insights
- Open to historians, pharmacists, researchers, students & curious minds!

📆 First session: Oct 8, 2025 | 12–1:30 PM EDT
🔎 Topic: Pre-Modern Pharmacy between Theory & Practice
👉 Join us: https://www.chstm.org/group/pharmacy-history


Photo for visibility. :)