We are excited to highlight the Historical Pharmacopeias project, a groundbreaking initiative featured in the article “A ‘Big Tent’ for the History of Pharmacy” in the newest issue of History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals (HoPP). The Historical Pharmacopeias project, spearheaded by Mackenzie Cooley (Hamilton College), Daniel Smail (Harvard University), and Gabriel Pizzorno (Harvard University), is reshaping how we understand the history of pharmacy.
The Historical Pharmacopeias project compiles and digitizes lists of medicaments from archival, manuscript, and published sources across Europe and its empires, spanning from antiquity to 1900. These lists, drawn from pharmaceutical texts, apothecary inventories, prescriptions, and more, are treated not as static documents but as dynamic “substances with bodily effect.” The data is transcribed, edited, and made publicly available through an open-access, multilingual, and searchable platform, The Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe (DALME), in the Historical Pharmaceopeias Collection.
This innovative resource supports a wide range of users, from historians and pharmacists to biochemists and medical researchers. By bridging historical inquiry with digital accessibility, the Historical Pharmacopeias project opens new pathways for global inclusive, and collaborative research in pharmacy history.
Access the Pharmacy in History JSTOR Archive
All past issues of Pharmacy in History have been digitized and are text-searchable at JSTOR.
Note: Academic libraries seeking subscriptions to History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals should directly contact the University of Wisconsin Press.
Read MoreUpcoming events hosted by AIHP
November 6, 2025, 3:00 pm (Central): AIHP Annual Business Meeting - Save the Date!
November 19, 2025, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Lauren Thompson, Kennesaw State University.
December 17, 2025, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Beyond medical pluralism: Interactions between physician-pharmacists and other craftspeople in the Graeco-Roman world with Laurence Totelin, Cardiff University.
January, 21, 2026, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Spring Semester Welcome Back Event: A critical reading of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, hosted by Kelly O'Donnell, Towson Unviersity.
February 18, 2026, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Audrey Ke Zhao, UC Santa Cruz & CHSTM Research Fellow
March 18, 2026, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Ryan A. Kashanipour, University of Arizona
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Upcoming events of interest to pharmacists and historians of pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, medicines, science, and related fields.
November 13-16, 2025: History of Science Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
November 16-18, 2025: APhA Joint Federal Pharmacy Seminar 2025, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
December 7-11, 2025: ASHP Midyear, Las Vegas, NV.
July 18-21, 2026: AACP Pharmacy Education, Grapevine, TX.