Medicine Industry

The use of drugs or medicine to relieve pain and to ward off death in interwoven with the ancient superstition that evil spirits cause disease. The healing powers of mythological personages, particularly of Aesculapius, son of Apollo, were sought in primitive cultures. The Papyrus Ebers, which take us back to the beginning of recorded history in the Nile Valley, contain drug formulas with as many as 35 ingredients, including botanicals, minerals, and animals products. A few of the minerals, such as sulfur, magnesia, and soda, still appear in current pharmacopeias. It was the Greeks. Hippocrates and Galen, who made an effort to approach therapy rather than mystically. Paracelsus born in 1493 experimented both in the laboratory and the clinic, and may be looked upon as the founder of chemotherapy.

Three centuries later, while Liebig and his students in Germany were synthesizing biologically active compounds methods for experimental medicine were developed in France by Bernard. Magendie, and others. Although the American pharmaceutical industry had made a modest beginning in 1786, the synthetic organic chemicals ether and chloroform were not used as anesthesia until the 1840s. Three years after the civil war, the first integrated industrial synthetic organic manufacturing operation was established in the united states. The groundwork for modern pharmaceutical research was begun in 1881 with the establishment of a scientific division of Eli Lilly & Co. The shortage of important drugs, such as sedative and novocaine, caused by the entry of the United States into World War I, precipitated expansion of the pharmaceutical industry into a successful effort to produce the synthetic chemical needed.

Development of insulin, liver extract and the barbiturates were milestones of the nest decade. Sulfa drugs and vitamins were added to many product lines during the 1930s. Blood plasma, new antimalarials, and the dramatic development of penicillin resulted from the demands of war. The spectacular surge of new products, which included steroid hormones, tranquilizers, vaccines, and broad and medium spectrum antibiotics, came after World War II. The 1970s saw the exciting development of gene splicing to produce new forms of living materials.