Between Grocers and Physicians: Pharmacists, the new Chemistry, and Institutional Reforms in Bologna during the Napoleonic Period

Abstract

This case study deals with pharmacy and the profession of the pharmacist in the Bolognese context of Napoleonic Italy. Pharmacists wished to be considered as peers by physicians. In order to reach this goal, they adopted two strategies: on the one hand, they tried to distinguish themselves from charlatans and grocers, with the refusal of the new decimal metric system in the name of the tradition and of the peculiarity of their discipline. On the other hand, they insisted on the theoretical side of the new anti-phlogistic chemistry, which provided pharmacy with a scientific basis. Through an analysis of the relationships between physicians and pharmacists before and after the reforms of public education and public health brought by Napoleon, as well as an analysis of the pharmacists' attitude towards the new chemistry, this paper shows that the two strategies adopted were too contradictory to allow the pharmacists to reach their goal.