The word apothecary comes from the Greek apothēkē (“storehouse”), the term used by the physician and medical author Galen to describe his collection of medicines. However, the first attestations of the profession of apothecary come from the Arabic Middle Ages [7. 267]. In the 13th century, the first European laws were enacted distinguishing the two professions of doctor and apothecary (Constitutiones of Frederick II, 1231/41, for the Regno of Sicily; decree of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, 1271).

Until the 19th century, the training of an apothecary consisted of a peri…