Pharmacy or pharmacist´s is a shop (or the part of a hospital) where medicines are prepared and sold.
In the UK it is also called chemist or chemist´s , in the USA and Canada drugstore. In North America drugstores commonly sell not only medicines but also cosmetics, magazines, sweets and refreshment.
Drugs are substances that change chemical reactions in the body.
Medicine / medication/ medical drugs/ pharmaceutical drugs/ pharmaceuticalsare any substances or combination of substances which are used for treating medical conditions or for prevention of disease. They are extensively tested before being used. Besides medical drugs there are also:
Recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are taken by people because they like the effects they have on their bodies, but they may be addictive.
Illegal recreational drugslike cannabis and heroin are very addictive.
‘Pharmacology’ is the science that deals with the origin, nature, chemistry, effects and uses of drugs.
Developing new drugs
New medical drugs have to be tested to ensure that they work, and are safe, before they can be prescribed. There are three main stages of testing:
- The drugs are tested using computer models and human cells grown in the laboratory. Many substances fail this test because they damage cells or do not seem to work.
- Drugs that pass the first stage are tested on animals. In the UK, new medicines have to undergo these tests, but it is illegal to test cosmetics and tobacco products on animals. A typical test involves giving a known amount of the substance to the animals, then monitoring them carefully for any side-effects.
- Drugs that have passed animal tests are used in clinical trials. They are tested on healthy volunteers to check they are safe. Very low doses of the drug are given to begin with. If there are no problems, further clinical trials are done to find the optimum dose for the drug.
Clinical trials are not without risk. Sometimes severe and unexpected side effects occur. Most substances do not pass all of the tests and trials, so drug development is expensive and takes a long time.
It is important to be certain that a drug really does have positive effects, rather than people feeling better simply because they expect to feel better if they take a medicine. This is called the placebo effect.
Performance-enhancing drugs
Athletes are often under great pressure to perform well. Some drugs are capable of artificially improving their performance; these include:
- stimulants – these boost heart rate and other body functions
- anabolic steroids – these stimulate the growth of muscles.
Some of these drugs are banned by law. Others are legally available on prescription or even in some medicines available from the pharmacy. However, the use of performance enhancing drugs is widely seen as unfair. They may also damage the athlete’s body.
Sporting regulations ban the use of performance enhancing drugs, and athletes are regularly tested to make sure that they are not using them.
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Medicines are either from natural origin (plants, animals, microbes) or prepared by chemical syntheses.
There are two main categories of medicines available in pharmacies:
- Over-the-counter medicines /non prescription drugs / OTC- which can be obtained without a prescription
(However, it is always a good idea to consult the pharmacist (or assistant) when choosing an OTC product. They are trained to ask you some important questions in order to give you the individualised care you need.)
- Prescription medicines which need written authorisation by the doctor before the pharmacist can supply it to the patient.
( The prescription is a form with information about the required medicine, including its name, form, strength, dose, quantity to be dispensed, how long you need to take it for and any other instructions for use.)
Medicines can have side effects which can cause health problems. Some of the causes include taking medicines incorrectly, combining them with alcohol, certain foods or other medicines, using medicines prescribed for someone else, overdosing, having allergy to chemical components of the medicine.
Common OTC medicines:
-can help with aches and pains (headache, toothache, sprains, minor muscle problems)- pain relievers/ pain killers
- help reduce fever(Ibuprofen, aspirin)
- treat cold, sore throat and cough symptoms
- relieve or prevent allergy symptoms – antihistamines
- slow down action of intestine – anti-diarrhea medicines
- help with upset stomach
- relieve constipation – laxatives
- help with itching and skin rashes- creams and ointments
Other non prescription substances are homeopathic medicines and vitamin, herbal and mineral supplements.
Next you can buy beauty products, baby food, plasters (BR) / Band-Aid(US), bandages, sanitary pads, cotton wool (BB) /cotton (AM),…
Prescription only medication: antibiotics, antihypertensives, antidepressants, sleeping tablets, strong pain medication, …
Medicines come in a variety of different forms, including: pills, tablets, capsules, injections, syrups, inhalants, creams, ointments, eye /nose /ear drops
Issues related to medicines: side -effects, abuse, overdosing, addiction, antibiotic resistance, availability, vaccination, tests on animals,homeopathic medicine,…
Online pharmacies, Internet pharmacies, or Mail Order Pharmacies are pharmacies that operate over the Internet and send the orders to customers through the mail or shipping companies.
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Aspirin, as it is known today, is a substance called acetylsalicylic acid (ASA). It is used worldwide as a ‘blood thinner’ and to relieve inflammation, pain and fever.
Aspirin was first produced 110 years ago, but the natural form, salicylic acid, found in plants (i.e. the willow and myrtle) has been used for thousands of years.
The natural form of aspirin, salicylic acid, was associated with an awful taste and often induced upset stomachs and vomiting. In 1853, scientist Charles Fredric Gerhardt was the first to prepare ASA by the addition of an acetyl chemical to natural salicylic acid, however this form was said to be unstable.
In 1897, Felix Hoffmann (a young chemist working for Bayer) independently made ASA in a more chemically pure, and stable form. Hoffman’s father had utilised sodium salicylate for rheumatic pain (to make it easier on the stomach).
The ability of aspirin to prevent heart attacks and stroke was first proposed in the 1940s when doctors observed that children who were given aspirin-laced chewing gum to relieve pain after a tonsillectomy bled more than those who did not have the gum. It was reasoned that if aspirin caused bleeding it could prevent clotting, the cause of heart attacks. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that doctors routinely started recommending aspirin.
Aspirin is now available in over 80 countries. It is regarded as the most successful non-prescription medicine of all time. Aspirin was one of the very first drugs to be made available in tablet-form
An antibiotic is a chemical substance produced by one organism that is destructive to another. The word antibiotic came from the word antibiosis which means a process by which life could be used to destroy life. Antibiotics are natural substances that are released by bacteria and fungi into the their environment, as a means of inhibiting other organisms - it is chemical warfare on a microscopic scale. Penicillin is one of the earliest discovered and widely used antibiotic agents, derived from the Penicillium mold.
The ancient Egyptians, the Chinese, and Indians of central America all used molds to treat infected wounds. However, they did not understand the connection of the antibacterial properties of mold and the treatment of diseases.
The search for antibiotics began in the late 1800s, with the growing acceptance of the germ theory of disease , a theory which linked bacteria and other microbes to the causation of a variety of ailments. As a result, scientists began to devote time to searching for drugs that would kill these disease-causing bacteria.
In 1928Sir Alexander Fleming (1881 – 1955) observed that colonies of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus could be destroyed by the mold Penicillium notatum, demonstrating antibacterial properties.
At the time, however, the importance of Alexander Fleming's discovery was not known. Use of penicillin did not begin until the 1940s when Howard Florey and Ernst Chain isolated the active ingredient and developed a powdery form of the medicine. Penicillin could now be sold as a drug. Fleming, Florey, and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on penicillin.
History of Penicillin
Originally noticed by a French medical student, Ernest Duchesne, in 1896. Penicillin was re-discovered by bacteriologist Alexander Fleming working at St. Mary's Hospital in London in 1928. He observed that a plate culture of Staphylococcus had been contaminated by a blue-green mold and that colonies of bacteria adjacent to the mold were being dissolved. Curious, Alexander Fleming grew the mold in a pure culture and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria. Naming the substance penicillin, Dr. Fleming in 1929 published the results of his investigations, noting that his discovery might have therapeutic value if it could be produced in quantity.
Resistance to Penicillin
Four years after drug companies began mass-producing penicillin in 1943, microbes began appearing that could resist it. The first bug to battle penicillin was Staphylococcus aureus. This bacterium is often a harmless passenger in the human body, but it can cause illness, such as pneumonia or toxic shock syndrome, when it overgrows or produces a toxin.
Home and Travel First Aid KitsAlmost everyone will need to use a first aid kit at some time.
Home kit: A household first aid kit should include these items:
Adhesive tape
Anesthetic spray or lotion - for itching rashes and insect bites
sterile gauze pads - for covering and cleaning wounds, as a soft eye patch
Adhesive bandages (all sizes)
oral antihistamine for allergic reactions, itching rashes.
Exam gloves - for infection protection, and can be made into ice packs if filled with water and frozen
antibiotic cream - to apply to simple wounds
Nonadhesive pads - for covering wounds and burns
Pocket mask for CPR
Safety pins (large and small) - for splinter removal and for securing triangular bandage sling
Scissors
Triangular bandage - as a sling, towel, tourniquet
Tweezers - for splinter or stinger or tick removal
Home first aid kits are usually used for treating these types of minor traumatic injuries:
Burns, cuts, abrasions (scrapes), stings, splinters,sprains
First aid kits for travel need to be more comprehensive because a drug store may or may not be accessible. In addition to personal medical items, the kit should contain items to help alleviate the common symptoms of viral respiratory infections such as fever, nasal congestion, cough, sore throat
It should also contain items to treat cuts, mild pain, gastrointestinal problems, skin problems, allergies
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