History of the Pharmaceutical Association in Japan

2024年10月31日 2024年11月2日

Hiiragi

　　In Japan, there is an organization called the Pharmaceutical Association, which is a professional organization composed of pharmacists. In addition, there are industry associations whose core members are corporations and associations composed of hospital pharmacists, but here we will introduce the so-called pharmacists' associations composed mainly of pharmacy pharmacists.

　　The modern organization of pharmacists in Japan can trace its roots to the Kanagawa Pharmaceutical Association, which was founded on February 23, 1890. 1890 was the 23rd year of the transition from the Edo shogunate to the Meiji government, and the year that the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, which incorporated Prussian and other foreign legal concepts, was enacted. The year 1890 was also the 23rd year since the transition from the Edo shogunate to the Meiji government. It was at the same time that Japan began its institutional and technological transition from the early modern era to the modern era that pharmacists also organized themselves into a professional organization called the Pharmaceutical association, incorporating knowledge from other countries.

　　In October 1892, the year after the Kanagawa Pharmaceutical Association was founded, the association launched a petition campaign to promote the division of labor, a system that had not yet fully taken root in Japan, in which doctors issue prescriptions to patients and pharmacists at pharmacies dispense medicines based on those prescriptions. In Japan, doctors generally examined patients and dispensed medicines at the same time, and it took a long time for the system of division of labor, in which pharmacists intervened, to take root.

　　Although the Kanagawa Pharmaceutical Association has suffered many disasters since then, including the Great Kanto Earthquake that struck Kanagawa Prefecture on September 1, 1923 and the Great Air Raid on Yokohama in 1945, it has rebuilt its organization each time through the efforts of the people at that time and has continued its activities to the present day. In addition to training and educational activities for pharmacists, today's pharmacists' associations are engaged in risk management activities, support for school pharmacists and other educational institutions, and activities to improve public health through cooperation among regional pharmacists' associations. In Japan, where natural disasters are frequent, the activities of the Pharmaceutical Association, which will play a part in its public mission in the future, may provide hints for many other countries in planning their policies. We will continue to actively disseminate new knowledge about the activities of Pharmacists Association in Japan. We could not be happier if these articles and findings help save many lives around the world.

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［1] Kanagawa Pharmaceutical Association, Footprints of Kanagawa Pharmaceutical Association,