"Conscientious Guardian" vs. "Commercialized Jungle": Pharmacists and Pharmacy Design in the Postwar United States

J Hist Med Allied Sci. 2023 Dec 16:jrad029. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrad029. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTPharmacists and pharmacies are key drivers in the American marketplace. They serve as an endpoint of the pharmaceutical supply chain and are the dispensers of a range of consumer goods, some nonthreatening and others potentially harmful to public health. In adding pharmacies to the roster of consumerist locales in the postwar period, scholars might draw even deeper connections about the transformation of health, corporate medicine, and American economic power. To understand the interface of consumerism, corporatism, and health in postwar America, this article holds the postwar pharmacy as a key site of commodity exchange and business and positions it within the larger American firmament, paying attention to the design of pharmacies. In particular, the article will add to the knowledge about the tangible ways that medical and health care spaces are constructed, organized, and designed to best generate profits. Besides prescription medications, alcohol, tobacco, and sugar-rich products were also vital elements of the postwar pharmacy and will be featured in this article. What is more, this article focuses on a central debate between pharmacists during the postwar period about how pharmacies were shifting from the role of healer to that of a retailer - from a "conscientious guardian" to a "commercialized jungle" - in order to highlight how the public health role of pharmacies wa...
Source: Medical History - Category: History of Medicine Authors: Source Type: research