last refills

The Refillsonian Institute proudly presents:

A BRIEFLY STUPID HISTORY OF PHARMACY:

IN THE BEGINNING

Eve said to Adam,

“Our garden is looking kind of shabby.  When are you going to get off your behind and fix the Euphrates?”

“Eve, let me rest awhile. My stomach hurts”.

So Eve reached up, took down some apples, and gave them to Adam.

“Here, take two of these”.

Then a voice from the heavens of Maryland thundered out:

“Who is making undocumented claims about my apples? Show me the data on that?”

Well, Adam and Eve had not done the studies. God issued them a 483 and they were banned from Eden.  They relocated to Irvine, California, where they started a biotech company. Big Pharma was born.

2,000,000 BC:

DEVELOPMENT OF FIRST RECTAL SUPPOSITORY.

Prehistoric man invents the first rectal suppository.  They are quite effective.  The rest of the tribe is so frightened by them that their bodies refuse to develop fevers.

Middle Ages:

EARLY EXPERIMENTS WITH INJECTABLE DRUGS.

First clinical trials of needle and syringe are halted after researchers fail to inject any of the subjects that are in the knight arm of the study.

1789:

ADVANCEMENTS IN LEECH TREATMENTS.

Faced with the prospects of expiring patent exclusivity, Hoffman LaLeech introduces a more “effective” leech in America.  Containing only the “active” form of the leech molecule, LeviLeech, thwarts all attempts by generic manufacturers to capture the leech market.

1946:

PHARMACISTS IN CINEMA.

In the film “Its a Wonderful Life”, town druggist, Emil Gower, manages to drink a bottle of whiskey at the pharmacy, accidentally fill capsules with rat poison, slap his delivery boy, George Bailey, in the side of the head, and causes him to be permanently deaf in one ear. All in the space of five minutes. And it wasn’t even a Monday.  This characterization sets the standard for pharmacists, everywhere, for the remainder of the 20th century.

1969:

PHARMA AND THE WOODSTOCK MUSIC FESTIVAL.

On August 15, 1969, the crowd at Woodstock is warned not to eat the brown acid.  Months later, the FDA orders a full recall of all brown acid, and the town of Woodstock is forced to enter into consent decree.