pharmacist vs druggist

[VTdigger]

Hello all I have a question I hope you can help me with,
Are a druggist and pharmacist considered the same thing? or is a pharmacist just someone who dispenses premixed medicines and a druggist a person who makes there own medicine .

I just dug another bottle from a Bennington VT pharmacist named J.T. Shurtleff that was 4 inches tall embossed with a mortar and pestle and J.T. Shurtleff in a banner style script, I also dug 4 other bottles by this same guy in the usual pharmacist script in different sizes.
I know Shurtleff also made his own medicines, because I have the Shurtleff's blood and dyspepsia bitters bottle and got an e-mail from the bottle museum saying he made several medicines himself. Would the pharmacist bottles be from medicine he just dispensed and the druggist be from his own medicine?

 

[surfaceone]

Jim,

"drug·gist   [druhg-ist]
noun
1. a person who compounds or prepares drugs according to medical prescriptions; apothecary; pharmacist; dispensing chemist.

2. the owner or operator of a drugstore.

Origin: 1605–15; drug1 + -ist; compare French droguiste"

~~~~~~~~~~~

"phar·ma·cist   [fahr-muh-sist]
noun
a person licensed to prepare and dispense drugs and medicines; druggist; apothecary; pharmaceutical chemist.

Also, phar·ma·ceu·tist  [fahr-muh-soo-tist] Show IPA.

Origin: 1825–35; pharmac(y) + -ist" From dictionary.com

Pretty much same/same, though pharmacist seems of slightly more recent origin. Don't confuse either with a maker of "Patent Medicine," though there were some, as your J.T. Shurtleff seems to prove.

 

[mctaggart67]

Up here in Canada, the terms are basically interchangeable, though pharmacist was and is the legal term under various provincial pharmacy acts, the statutes which regulated the trade and stipulated licensing. Generally speaking, as the 1800s progressed, the term "pharmacist" came into greater use, both in common written (and presumably spoken) language and on bottle embossings and labellings, although the term "druggist" was not pushed aside. Until around the late 1860s/early 1870s, "druggist" basically meant anyone, traditionally trained and educated or not, who had a stock of crude drugs and chemicals, and from that stock compounded medicines, both off-the-shelf and prescription varieties. We Canadians also imported the English professional term, "chemist and druggist," which was used during the first several decades of the 1800s to denote a person formally trained through apprenticeship and/or formally educated through a university course. Another English term that came into vogue during the mid-1800s was "pharmaceutist," which, in my experience researching the trade during this time, was sometimes adopted by higher-end, more affluent trained druggists to, if anything, sound impressive before a more discriminating clientele.

 

[RIBottleguy]

I have seen bottles from the same person, one embossed druggist and the other pharmacist. It certainly is interesting...

 

[mctaggart67]

Yes, so have I, Taylor. Good point you made there!

 

[VTdigger]

cool thanks for the information. I hope to do some more research on the local pharmacists at the local museum on what how many different embossed variations they dispensed there medicines in and than set a goal to dig/find as many as I can there's a few of them I own with chips and cracks but I keep them just to document the different sizes, shapes and types of embossing.