From the Collections is a recurring feature at aihp.org that highlights articles, artifacts, images, and other items of interest from AIHP publications and collections.
This shipment of Type 1 Sabin oral polio vaccine from Charles Pfizer & Company to Syracuse, NY, in September 1961 was stored at 30° below zero F. (Image from AIHP Drug Topics Collection).
Today’s item is the article, “Pharmacists and Immunization: Increasing Involvement over a Century,” by Dr. John D. Grabenstein from the vol. 41, no. 4 (1999) issue of Pharmacy in History. This article will be open access and available to all readers (at the link above) via JSTOR until December 31, 2020.
As the world eagerly awaits an effective immunization against COVID-19, it seems reasonable to expect that pharmacists will have a major role in administering the vaccine.
Although pharmacists have long been involved with immunization and it is commonplace today for pharmacists to give vaccinations, the modern era of pharmacists as vaccinators dates back only to 1982.
How did this professional role for pharmacists develop over the twentieth century? Read about in Dr. Grabenstein’s article at the link above.
Dr. Grabenstein’s article traces the history of vaccines and pharmacists from the early twentieth century and their participation in (and sometimes opposition to) government-run public health campaigns against diseases like smallpox and diphtheria. Pharmacists then played an important role, as he recounts, in the polio vaccination campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. And, since 1982, individual pharmacists and the APhA have organized programs to raise the awareness and administration of vaccines.
Hopefully, pharmacists will soon be on the forefront of vaccinating the public against COVID-19.
Coleman’s Drug Store, of Kirkland, Washington, used refrigeration technology in 1947 to store
vaccines in a prominent location. (Image from AIHP Drug Topics Collection).
Emmett E. Packer, president of the Dauphin-Cumberland-Lebanon Pharmaceutical Association of Pennsylvania prepares individual does of the Sabin oral polio vaccine in 1961. (Image from AIHP Drug Topics Collection).
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AIHP Wants to Document Your COVID-19 Stories and Experiences
The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy is documenting and preserving pharmacy stories and experiences during the COVID-19 global pandemic for the benefit of future historians and scholars. We seek to record the effects of this public health emergency on all types of pharmacy experiences. We invite you to share your pharmacy stories, photos, videos, artifacts, and other documentation of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
You can participate in the AIHP COVID-19 Pandemic Pharmacy Historical Documentation Project either (1) by immediately sharing your thoughts/experiences and/or submitting digital materials or (2) by signifying your to intention to submit materials in the future. Please comply with all applicable local or state stay-at-home orders while self-documenting.
Please click the link below to learn more about participating in the AIHP COVID-19 Pandemic Pharmacy Historical Documentation Project.
Upcoming events of interest to historians of pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, medicines, science, and related fields. (Event information current when posted. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, please double-check the status of all events):
The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy is documenting and preserving pharmacy stories and experiences during the COVID-19 global pandemic for the benefit of future historians and scholars. We seek to record the effects of this public health emergency on all types of pharmacy experiences. We invite you to share your pharmacy stories, photos, videos, artifacts, and other documentation of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.