Two Hundred Years of Pharmacy in Mississippi

Two Hundred Years of Pharmacy in Mississippi
by Leslie Caine Campbell

Early in the nineteenth century the Choctaw alikchi chito, or "big doctor," gathered medicinal herbs for Mississippi practitioner Gideon Lincecum and told him of their traditional usage. Lincecum preserved the plants, accompanied by his carefully made notations. More than a hundred years later Lincecum's compilation was rediscovered by historians and brought to the attention of drug researchers at the University of Mississippi. As a result, some of these plants are being cultivated in the School of Pharmacy's drug gardens. Bridging two cultures and two centuries, university researchers are using advanced spectroscopy and computer technology as they follow the clues of Indian lore in developing compounds for use in modern medicine. This historical link to the present from Mississippi's past is one of the dramatic developments traced in this book. Noted briefly are connections between pharmacy and famous Mississippians, including William Faulkner, Mike Conner, and Theodore G. Bilbo, alongside accounts of the work of the great men of Mississippi pharmacy: Matthew Franklin Ash, Henry Minor Faser, and Charles W. Hartman. This is the story of pharmacy at the grass roots and near the fork of the creek, with glimpses of folk medicine and superstitious practice, the Mississippi pharmacist in the Civil War, and pharmacy practiced in the drugstores of small towns like Bude and Gloster, as well as in Mississippi's principal cities. It traces the evolving professionalism of pharmacy in twentieth century Mississippi and the development of the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy into one of the nation's leading educational and research centers for the pharmacy profession. The bibliography, containing over 300 entries, provides for the first time an extensive survey of sources in the history of medicine and pharmacy in Mississippi. It will be valued by scholars in the field and can serve to inspire further specialized research as well as a greater coverage of the health professions in general histories of Mississippi than has heretofore been the case. Two Hundred Years of Pharmacy in Mississippi is published in commemoration of the Centennial of the Mississippi State Pharmaceutical Association, 1871-1971, and in celebration of the Bicentennial of the United States of America, 1776-1976. It covers the period from 1771 to 1971, reaching back a century before the association's founding and approximately coinciding with the two hundred year history of the United States. In the absence of analytical and cohesive narrative pharmaceutical histories of the other states, it provides for the nation a penetrating look at the day-by-day practice of pharmacy in the towns and cities of the United States. While not a comparative history, it can be read as representative of the evolution of the pharmacy profession as it has occurred in many of the fifty states.

Leslie Caine Campbell is Professor Emeritus of History and Associate Dean Emeritus at Auburn University.