I'm writing this in response to a trip to the Walgrens down the street. First, if you'd read this:
Pharmacy, Origins:
Pharmacy is among the oldest of professions, and the earliest prescriptions, written by the Sumerians, date back to at least 2700 bc. The practitioners of healing at this time combined the roles of priest, pharmacist, and physician. Chinese pharmacy traces its origins to the emperor Shen Nung, in about 2000 bc, who investigated the medicinal value of several hundred herbs. The most important Egyptian pharmaceutical record is the ebers papyrus, of about 1500 bc, a collection of around 800 prescriptions. In Greece, Theophrastus, the father of botany, observed and wrote about the medicinal properties of herbs in about 300 bc.
Read more: pharmacy - Origins, Organization, International pharmaceutical organizations, Support staff and education, Europe and USA, Challenges, pharmakeus, apothicaire, pharmacien
Not sure how much you read, or if you visited the site, but when you hear and see pharmacy don't you think human/health?
Anyway I went in and asked the Pharmacist where the minerals and electrolytes were. She said, minerals? I said, yeah, minerals - and electrolytes and that type of stuff - to take, you know? Finally it was like she deciphered my request and said "Oh (pointing), they're right on the next isle". Great, so I go on the next isle annnnd - pedialyte. Yeah, that's all. Pedialyte is like electrolyte soda pop (for kids).
When did people forget what people are and how can a "Pharmacy" not have "Minerals"? I'm telling you this girl didn't any idea what I was talking about. To me, this is really weird, it's freaky. All of us are humans - we don't need most of the crap in that store. 95% of what they sell is totally unnecessary and a third of it could be considered harmful. Why call it a pharmacy?
Call it what it is - a candy store with a place to fill prescriptions. I don't (too much) that these places exist but - man - where's the human/health part fit in? I guess if you lived 5,000 years ago a pharmacy would know what minerals meant to the body and would have them available. How did we get from knowing so much about being a human on earth to - This?
Good Reading:
Pharmaceutical Terrorism The Backbone of Modern Medicine
How Healing Illness Became Managing Illness
Rockefeller Medicine Men And a host of other pdf files