The pharmaceutical business was a hugely lucrative and heterogeneous one in colonial India. It included a large trade in exports of bulk drugs as well as wholesale and retail trade in Indian and western therapeutic products, proprietary medicines and generic pills of all kinds. The retail trade was carried out by large British and a few Indian importers who often manufactured their own medicines and employed pharmacists trained abroad, their retail units were large, well-lit department store –like (Frank Ross Ltd., Kemp and Co., Bathgate and Co., Smith, Stanistreet and Company, etc.); at the other end of the spectrum was the itinerant practitioner in the local bazaars; within this spectrum the identity, work and training of the retail drug dispenser varied widely.

Any narrative of the practice of pharmacy in the developed world includes the establishment of self-regulating professional bodies, legislation to exclude unqualified practitioners from dispensing, and the publication of trade journals. In a colonial context, the dynamics of dispensing were significantly different from the above trajectory. The apothecary’s profession was framed formally within the army in India; in the nineteenth century, the military department of the government was also the principal distributor of imported therapeutic products to civil hospitals and government-aided dispensaries. In the open market, barring a few exceptions, the pharmacist’s training was often rudimentary and dispensing was learnt through an informal apprentice system. In the twentieth century, the burgeoning trade in pharmaceuticals occasioned intense debate on the need for control and professionalization of the occupation of pharmacists both within the industry and from concerned nationalists, consumers, and even, occasionally, the colonial government. The public discourse on the training, qualifications, and the role of the pharmacist included debates within the medical profession, in the legislative assemblies and in the English and the vernacular press. In this period, the profession of Indian pharmacy was the object of great scrutiny, discussion, and eventually, compromise within the medical profession. This paper will examine the changing role and work of the pharmacists in the hybrid pharmaceutical market in colonial India.