Conservación del patrimonio farmacéutico aragonésregulación, ética y estética

Abstract

SUMMARY. The conservation and knowledge of the pharmaceutical heritage implies not only an appreciation of the past by the current society, but something that must be regulated by public entities, So it can involve an education in scientific, ethical and aesthetic values. This thesis focuses on the study and preservation of an important part of the Aragon’s pharmaceutical historical heritage, which is located in the Pharmacy Service (SF) of the Royal Hospital of Our Lady of Grace of Zaragoza (HNSGZ). It consists of two historical pharmacies of the late nineteenth century, a hospital pharmacy, and a local one of a kind pharmacy of the 19th century. This supposes a extremely rare example within the pharmaceutical patrimony in Spain. In our time preserving our heritage is not only a possibility, but an obligation, an ethical imperative. It is important in the conditions of today's world, to make the heritage more comprehensible and understandable by the population. Safeguarding the past is important. Only because as history has proven us many times, understanding our past contributes to enriching our future. In this doctoral thesis, the pharmaceutical heritage conserved in the HNSGZ SF has been documented to avoid its loss and to make it understandable and close to society, with the purpose of helping the past to renew the future. The regulation, cataloging and study of the furniture, instruments, objects, medicines, books and documents that had remained almost intact in the same place for the last century and a half. All of the items have performed their function and have served the pharmacist to perform his work. Likewise, the biographies of the pharmacists who have participated in the history of the pharmacies studied are reviewed. This work is carried out on a transcendental time which is not well studied, the evolution of the pharmacist's mission, the passage of the pre-industrial era, from preparing drugs by demand, to a new period defined by industrialization in the preparation of them. Our study shows the transformation of the functions of the hospital pharmacist, from his almost complete dedication to the formulation of specific medicines, and their dispensation to the patient, to the attributions like the selection of the most cost-effective medicine for the hospital and the expansion of its role in such important aspects as the field of hospital sterilization and disinfection. It also discovers the importance of the pharmacists who were involved in this process of change, which according to their biographies were an example, for its dedication to society, and also for working in related scientific fields. We believe that this work was necessary and cataloging more than two thousand ceramic objects, glass containers, medicines, instruments and bibliographic material was worth it. All of them are kept within the SF of the HHNSGZ and the FR. They show the incredible rich heritage preserved in this space. Finally we want to present concrete ideas of how to preserve this unique heritage, so that it can be known, enjoyed, and valued by society.