Society of Pharmacy of Bordeaux

Pharmacy is the science and technique of arranging and dispensing drugs. It is a health profession that links health sciences with chemical sciences and targets to authorize the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs.

The scope of pharmacy practice embraces more traditional roles such as compounding and dispensing medications, and it also includes more present services related to health care, including clinical services, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy, and provided that drug information. Pharmacists, therefore, are the experts on drug therapy and are the primary health professionals who improve use of medication for the benefit of the patients.

An establishment in which pharmacy (in the first intellect) is practiced is called a pharmacy (this term is more common in the United States) or a chemist's (which is more mutual in Great Britain). In the United States and Canada, drugstores commonly sell drugs, as well as miscellaneous items such as confection, cosmetics, office supplies, and magazines and occasionally refreshments and groceries.

The word pharmacy is derived from its derivation word pharma which was a term used since the 15th–17th centuries. However, the original Greek roots from pharmakos imply enchantment or even poison. In addition to pharma responsibilities, the pharma vacant general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by other specialist specialists, such as surgery and midwifery. The pharma often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, traded tobacco and patent medicines. Often the place that did this was called an apothecary and several languages have this as the leading term, though their practices are more akin to a modern pharmacy, in English the term apothecary would today be seen as invalid or only approproriate if herbal remedies were on offer to a large range. The pharmas also used many other herbs not noted. The Greek word Pharmakeia derives from pharmakon , meaning "drug", "medicine".

In its investigation of herbal and chemical constituents, the work of the pharma may be considered as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry and pharmacology, previous to the formulation of the scientific method.