Pharmacies, Apothecaries, and Such

As a fresh legal arrival in America from communism, the requests I kept getting from my relatives left behind, besides the blue jeans everyone loved, was medicine, medicine that was non-existent in pharmacies or in very short supply in the socialist republic ruled by the inept Communist Party that had no idea how to run an economy and if they did, they did not care that people suffered and died needlessly.

For some reason, the extended family thought that I could walk into a U.S. pharmacy and purchase whatever I wanted, without a doctor’s visit, and without a prescription for a valid, demonstrable ailment. A refusal to deliver their requests put me on a do not contact because she is not going to deliver list. I had no money, no resources, and no prescriptions.

Looking at the history of pharmaceuticals and the places where medicinal drugs were made, the apothecary, it is self-evident that there was a definitive split between apothecaries and doctors – their distinct roles were to mortar and pestle a potion/compound upon the request of the doctors.

The Holy Roman Emperor, Fredrick II, who was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Emperor, but king of Sicily, promulgated in 1231 the Constitution of Melfi which determined that doctors were not to prepare remedies for disease, only prescribe them.

Based on surviving painting, murals, and wood carvings of apothecaries (“storehouse” in Greek) in medieval Europe, they looked very much like the apothecary in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Potions, ointments, plants, and liquids were stored in ceramic jars on shelves around the store and a counter circled the shelves. Amulets, candles, and sponges were hanging from hooks.

What exactly did apothecaries think had curative powers in medieval times? Precious and semi-precious stones like agate were thought to cure eye problems; mineral water which is still believed today to have curative powers; products from animals (quite a big trade still exists in China today of different animal parts, some which result in the cruel slaughter of endangered species, often just to harvest their fins, tusks, or other organs); products from humans such as nails, urine, blood; spices; and a large variety of dried plants and mushrooms.

Because convents, monasteries, and abbeys were places of learning, could afford to purchase expensive hand-illustrated and written one of a kind books, and had special gardens called herbularius dedicated to medicinal plants called simples, they received the pilgrims and the poor who were offered hospitality within the abbey, in a wing called hospitals; the monks often treated their sores, ailments, and diseases for the duration of their stays. The monks were the teachers, the herbalists, the apothecaries, the doctors of first resort, and spiritual guides.

A pharmacopoeia, De Materia Medica, by the Greek physician Dioscorides, was found in monasteries in the medieval west as well as in the Arab world. A pharmacopoeia was a compendium published as an authority for standards of strength, purity, and quality of therapeutic drugs. It described how each drug, potion, poultice was formulated, their chemical properties, quantities, and preparation methods so that the resulting product would be ‘standard’ every time.  Today we have the U.S. Pharmacopoeia (USP), the European Pharmacopoeia (EP), and the British Pharmacopoeia (BP).

There is a fresco from an apothecary in northwestern Italy in the 15^th century; ceramic vessels with medicinal ingredients are lining the shelves and a precision scale/balance is present, as well as a mortar and pestle.

There is reference to an apothecary in Camadoli, east of Florence, in 1048. In the same town, a monk called Romuald founded a Benedictine group that ran a hospital for the poor.

In 1221 a Dominican convent was built in Florence next to Basilica of Santa Maria Novella which ran the precursor of the modern drugstore. “Apothecaries were obligated to label the bottles, indicating when the remedy was prepared.”

On the bell tower of Florence Cathedral there is a 14^th century panel carved by Nino Pisano, panel which represents medicine with apothecary jars.

In 1281Paris the Faculty of Medicine forbade apothecaries “to visit the sick or dispense any medicine without a prescription from a physician.” It is not known for sure how knowledgeable physicians of that time were about drugs and their efficacy in the treatment of disease. In modern times, it is fair to say that pharmacists know more about drugs than doctors do.

The rise of professional guilds further regulated the activities of apothecaries. For example, in 1353 the king’s statutes regulated by law the Guild of Spice Merchants-Apothecaries in Paris. One could not practice mixing potions “if he did not  know how to read prescriptions or had no one who knew how to do so.”

Apothecaries could not sell poisonous and dangerous medicines, bottles had to be labeled with the year and month of preparation, and products had to be sold “at a loyal, fair, and moderate price.” Perhaps modern medicine could learn a thing or two from such modest inclinations, following the medieval price regulation.

To ensure compliance, “a master of apothecaries with two physicians from the dean of the Faculty of Medicine inspected each apothecary at least twice a year” to make sure the substances within the shop were good. (Nat Geo 2025)

Women were not allowed to be apothecaries, they were only relegated to midwifery. Women were skilled in medicine and healing but were not accepted in Europe as they were accepted in the New World of 1682.

According to Nat Geo, there is record of a prescription in 1462 for the King Henry IV of Castile by the Spanish apothecary Fernando Lopez de Aguilar, for stomach water at a cost of 48 maravedis. The liquid contains chamomile flower 2 oz, roses 2 oz, violets 2 oz, and King’s crown (Pyrenean saxifrage) 2 oz. (Nat Geo, July/August 2025)

With such a long history of apothecary science and art, will modern pharmacists survive technology and AI?

 

Socialized Medicine Drug Dispensing

One example of how ineffective socialized medicine drug dispensing is in the military:

Prior to the Covid-19 lockdown, prescriptions had to be manually carried to the military facility pharmacy to be filled and the wait was on the average one hour.

Now, because of the viral lockdown, doctors can send the prescription to the pharmacy via fax or computer. However, the patient must go to the said pharmacy and personally request that the prescription be activated and wait a couple of hours minimum to have the prescription filled and dispensed if the drug is on their formulary. If it is not on the formulary, the prescription must be transferred to an outside pharmacy and the cost can be expensive or prohibitive especially for retired veterans on a limited income.

Expensive drugs are never on the formulary and the patient must bear the brunt of most of the cost. At least they can get the drug if they have the money.

Some drugs that are taken for a long time can be filled by mail but, in the case of emergency drugs for sudden illness, the drugs must be purchased at the pharmacy.

Socialized medicine worked the same way under the socialist countries ruled by the ineffective Communist Party. The difference was that drugs were ALWAYS in short supply and high demand, or not available to the masses. Those said masses could avoid the shortage by buying on the black market from outside sources, however, most people were too poor and had little resources to buy at such expensive prices. Salaries were relatively equal and small in all professions.

So far, we have avoided that shortage and non-availability fate in this country but for how long?

Millennials Caught up in the Lies of Social Justice

Aldous Leonard Huxley in 1954

Photo: Wikipedia

In a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, Aldous Leonard Huxley, British writer and philosopher, discussed the power of technology, drugs, and propaganda as formidable methods of indoctrination. He talked about Hitler who used the press and radio very effectively to brainwash an entire nation to accept the evil that followed. He explained to Wallace:

“…  a piece of very recent and very painful history is the propaganda used by Hitler, which was incredibly effective. I mean, what were Hitler's methods? Hitler used terror on the one kind, brute force on the one hand, but he also used a very efficient form of propaganda which …he was using every modern device at that time. He didn't have TV, but he had the radio which he used to the fullest extent and was able to impose his will on an immense mass of people. I mean, the Germans were a highly educated people.”

Indoctrination through relentless propaganda is so effective that it creates slaves who are happy to be indentured. For example, most Americans accept property tax increases because they believe it benefits schools and their children. But in some areas, property tax increases educate the children of newly arrived Muslim economic refugees and illegal aliens who have crossed the border illegally alone or in caravans organized and advised by non-profits funded by the United Nations, businesses and elites with an interest to gain new Democrat voters, supporters for the globalist agenda, and cheap labor.

Huxley mentioned Orwell’s “1984” book and said “That if you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs as I foresaw in ‘Brave New World,’ partly by these new techniques of propaganda. They will do it by bypassing the sort of rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions, and his physiology even, and so making him actually love his slavery. I mean, I think, this is the danger that actually people may be, in some ways, happy under the new regime, but that they will be happy in situations where they oughtn't to be happy.”

Huxley continued, “… there are methods at present available, methods superior in some respects to Hitler's methods, which could be used in a bad situation. I mean, what I feel very strongly is that we mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. This has happened again and again in history with technology's advance and this changes social condition, and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn't foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn't want to do.” http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/articles/Mike_Wallace_interviews_Aldous_Huxley_May_18_1958.html

It is now painfully evident what propaganda through any means, especially through technology and drugs, and indoctrination for the last forty years through education, Hollywood, and the mainstream media, have done to younger generations of Americans. They are now the pliant drones, happy to be slaves to the globalist ideology which includes the U.N. Agenda 21/2030.

I had met recently with Millennials who validated abundantly the indoctrination theory, hard-core liberals, some of whom fortunately have not yet voted in presidential elections. They get their information from other thoroughly indoctrinated friends who hear certain phrases and fabrications passed as reality. Repeated ad nauseam by the shrill leftist media and their low-information followers, the propaganda becomes truth.

The young Millennials told me that they never hesitated to join in the fray of any protest marching in their town, no matter how vile or pointless. The excitement of the melee of the loud and well-paid rent-a-mobs, called them to join in the tussle.

There was a time when young Americans in their late teens and early twenties were responsible adults, settled down in marriage and family with children. Today they are immature in late adulthood, whiny snowflakes, easily triggered, cowardly, intolerant of others who disagree with them, living in their parents’ basements without any shame or feelings of self-respect and responsibility.

I had asked before what is it that they reject so vehemently, and I got blank stares or quick replies that President Trump is hated profoundly for being a racist. I asked them what it was that President Trump did that offended them so, evidence of racism, or how he impacted their lives even before he was sworn in and the answer was, he is bad, repeating the canned narrative they’ve heard on cable channels or from their equally misguided and misinformed friends.

When they received a tax refund last year thanks to President Trump’s tax policy, I asked if they refunded the money since everything Trump did or does, in their view, works against them and the “man.” They laughed and kept the money.

There is no leftist cause, no matter how outrageous, that social justice Millennials will not volunteer to support. They cannot really explain what they mean by social justice, and if there was ever, at any point in time social justice in the world.

They have no idea how society operates, how the economy is run, what it means to be an American citizen, the duties and responsibilities to family and to our nation. They are shameless, compass-less individuals with no future who think that getting a degree in social justice or women's studies will allow them to work for a non-profit and help people. They are not sure how, when, where, which people, and how they are going to pay their own bills and live. They just know, they will help people.

Communist medical care

Rationing of everything was a staple of daily life in Romania. We could only have so much before we turned into burgeois society and we had to be kept under control by the dreaded financial police. Nobody was allowed to get ahead in any way and, if there were appearances that a family had acquired something extra, the neighborhood spies would report them to the economic police. What would these neighborhood spies get in return for their service? Usually the right to shop at the communist party stores, with no lines, better food, more variety, and better service. They were given about $150 per month as well. Once the police started the investigation, the family had to prove where and how they obtained the money to buy certain things, usually in excess of the identical salaries, barely scraping by, people earned. This was by design to satisfy the utopian communist ideal that everybody had to be equal except the oligarchy in power. They earned more money, shopped at their own stores, had their own doctors, hospitals, hotels, overseas vacations, Swiss bank accounts, and summer resorts with five star hotels and maid service.

Everyone lived in the same drab, concrete block apartments, the size of a studio apartment in the west. Often times two families had to share a two bedroom apartment with only one kitchen and one bathroom. The spartan conditions extended to medical care as well. By definition, everything was free. Trying to actually get the care, cost quite a bit of money, more than most families earned. There were bribes to see the doctor, bribes to see the nurse, bribes to see the pharmacist, the lab and X-ray technicians. There were bribes for the cleaning lady when the patient was in the hospital. A family member had to stay with the patient 24/7 and take care of everything otherwise the patient was not fed, changed, attended to when in distress, bandages changed, etc. The doctor and the nurse sometimes did not show up for days. A patient would be hospitalized for weeks and would not see a doctor almost the entire time unless bribes were given: bottles of wine, money, foreign chocolate, foreign cigarettes, stockings, shampoo, foreign soap, U.S. dollars, jewelry, etc. Doctors made the same low salaries as any worker and they compensated by violating their Hyppocratic oath and refusing to treat someone unless bribes were given.

The quality of doctors was very questionable since medical school graduates had no practical experience on patients whatsoever only theoretical knowledge. Medical school took six years to complete with no residency requirements. Most patients took their lives into their own hands when they agreed to have elective surgery. When an emergency arose, the outcome was mostly dire. Even simple operations ended in disaster, nipped colons during appendectomies, nipped voice boxes during thyroidectomies, cut blood vessels, ruptured and nicked organs, instruments and bandages left inside the patient, etc. There was no ethical or moral accountability for the death of any human being. Life was worth zero and nobody punished any doctor for malpractice. They were all working for the government, who was the family going to sue for the death of their loved one? The government?

The sanitary conditions were horrible. Bandages were washed,rewashed and reused, needles were boiled in rusty metal pans and so were the glass and metal syringes. Nothing was disposable. When I was in high school, the entire school received injections with the same three needles and syringes. Every morning they were boiled in a pan and the same were used all day until the next morning when they were boiled again. I do mean boiled, they were not autoclaved. I was lucky because my last name started with A so I was the first to get any shot. The rest of my school mates had gotten hepatitis from dirty needles. We were lucky that there was no HIV epidemic yet.

The hospital wards were very dirty and in bad need of repairs and painting. Each ward had anywhere from twenty to thirty metal beds with mattresses stained of blood and other bodily fluids of endless patients who had used the hospitals. The family had to bring sheets and blankets for the patient. The floors were not usually mopped and caked blood and other stains were present. Food was not provided by the hospital and family members had to take turns to bring nourishment and water to the patient every day. No IV fluids were provided.

Each hospital had one ambulance that was equipped with nothing to save lives and did not have an EMT on board. A driver would supplement his salary on the way to an emergency by giving rides to hitchhikers. Most ambulances arrived too late to save someone's life. However, if the patient had non-life threatening emergency, they were lucky to survive the long, uncomfortable, and arduous trip to the hospital in an empty ambulance.

Dental care was non-existent. Nobody was allowed to clean their teeth at the dentist, it was too expensive and too capitalist. The only time we were allowed to make an appointment, if we were lucky, was when someone needed their teeth pulled or a root canal. I still remember the dentist who talked and spit in my mouth when I was 15. He was doing a root canal without any anesthetic, oblivious to my screams of pain and the dripping blood on my clothes. He had nicked the inside of my mouth with the drill. The treatment was stretched over a period of three months. I cannot begin to tell you the pain that this man subjected me to unnecessarily. People tried to avoid the dentist like the plague and did their best to brush their teeth if they could find toothbrushes and toothpaste. Both items were in constant shortage.

There were no such things as tampons or pads. Women had to use rags from old clothes or purchase bags of folded cotton which was also very hard to find. It was considered a pharmaceutical item and in very short supply. It was not uncommon to see women bleed down their legs in public. It was embarassing and mortifying but those were the economic conditions.

Pharmacies compounded most drugs if they had the ingredients; there were a few drugs that were already pre-made in pill form or powder which had to be mixed with water or poured into large paper capsules that were very difficult to swallow. Meds were always in short supply and people had to bribe pharmacists even for vitamins although technically, they were free. When medicine was available, people did not need prescriptions, they could get whatever drugs they thought might cure their pain. There was no such thing as a controlled substance. The government did not care whether people lived or died. We were all considered a burden on society.

The government did care about the number of babies born. Because people died at such a young age due to poor nutrition, hard life in general, and lack of proper medical care, the replacement value of the population was not there. There were more people deceased than there were babies born. Ceausescu's regime decided to reward motherhood with stipends per live born baby and, at the same time, forbade any abortion, period. It became a felony for both the patient and the doctor if a pregnancy ended in abortion, whether it was a spontaneous one or a medical one.

If people could not afford the newborn, the government gladly took them and placed them in state orphanages where they were promptly neglected and barely cared for as human beings. Many women who were raped resorted to back alley abortions and lost their lives as a result. If they went to the emergency room as a result of a botched abortion or a spontaneous one, the law forbade the doctor to give proper treatment without police being present and investigating first. Often women would bleed to death before police arrived or did their criminal investigation. Antibiotics were refused if the woman did not testify who performed the abortion.

My own grandfather and grandmother were victims of the lack of proper medical care. My grandfather had surgery to repair a hernia and they nicked his colon - he died of gangrene in hurendous pain. My grandmother had an ulcer and the village medic gave her aspirin for pain. She bled to death.

My best friend had a tonsillectomy and the doctor cut her voice box - her voice was never the same, she talked like an old man.