Next steps into researching pharmacy history
Thinking of publishing your research?
If you’ve never investigated pharmacy history before, the prospect may seem daunting. Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to get help.
Perhaps you’d like some ideas about projects that you could get stuck into to get started.
Don’t forget to use the rest of this resource to explore some of the resources available.
10 possible projects:
1. Interview 5 retired pharmacists
2. Interview 5 older people about their memories of visits to the chemist
3. Interview 5 older people about their memories of old remedies
4. Explore the records of a local hospital
5. Explore prescription books from a local pharmacy or hospital dispensary
6. Investigate old photographs of a pharmacy to identify clues about practice and products
7. Investigate the account books from a local pharmacy
8. Find a piece of pharmacy equipment (or an image of one) and trace its origin
9. Identify changes over time in the ingredients of a proprietary medicine
10. Identify 10 products that have been withdrawn from the market and find out why
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If you’ve already got an idea for a project, but aren’t sure where to start, you might want to consider the following questions:
• what geographical area am I going to investigate? (Great Britain, Scotland, Yorkshire, Plymouth)
• what time period am I interested in? (a century, a decade, a particular year)
• what are the secondary sources that can help me? (published books and journals, online resources, bibliographies)
• what primary sources might be available? (investigate our research resources section to find out more)
• who might be able to help me out?
Next steps in researching the history of pharmacy
Your research may simply be for your own interest, or it may be for a school or university project. In this case you may need to write it up in a certain way, and you may even wish to consider publishing it. There are many websites which will help you to take these next steps, and we list a few of them here.
For a simple guide to The Seven Steps of the Research Process see the Cornell University website.
You may need to include references from a much broader literature. For doing searches on the internet try the Berkeley University or Tilburg University website.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Library has a guidance page specifically on finding pharmacy information on the internet.
Once you have found relevant references you will need to cite them appropriately. For citing references try Bournemouth University website.
For general report writing skills there is the Open University's Open Learn website.
For specific guidance on Writing and Presenting Your Thesis or Dissertation, click here
For a quick guide to instructions for authors, click here
Thinking of publishing your research?
If you are considering publishing your research a wide range of magazines and journals are potentially interested in articles or papers on the history of pharmacy and medicines. These include:
Popular history magazines:
- History Today
- BBC History
Journals in the history of pharmacy:
- Pharmaceutical Historian
- Pharmacy in History
- Pharmacy History Australia
Journals in the history of medicine:
- Medical History
- Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
- Social History of Medicine
- Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Others:
- Oral History
- British Journal for the History of Science
- AMBIX (Journal for the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry)
- Other History of Science and Technology journals