India's Medico-Pharmaceutical Inheritance from the Colonial Period.

The development of pharmacy in India did not make sufficient headway during the British colonial period. The status of the pharmaceutical inheritance from the colonial era may be summarized as follows: There were around one hundred qualified pharmacists. The Health Survey and Development Committee (1943-45) put the number at 75. The number of compounders was nearly 27,000. They were inadequately qualified and were not counted as pharmacists. A large number of them worked in governmental hospitals. But for some missionary hospitals there was hardly any institutionalized pharmacy else-where. The drug distribution was in the hands of chemists and druggists who were not professionally qualified. The provision of drugs largely remained a trade. The drug industry was in its infancy. The yearly turnover was just 100 million rupees for a country as vast as India. The Drugs Rules 1945 under the Drug Act 1940 had been formulated but their implementation was yet to be effected. Some groundwork had been done on legislation for the control of pharmacy but the bill had yet to be enacted. There were three pharmacy degree-awarding institutions. The Banaras Hindu University and the Panjab University had instituted B. Pharm. courses in 1937 and 1944, with yearly intake of 20 and 5 students, respectively. The L. M. College of Pharmacy at Ahmedabad, then with the Bombay University, had their first admissions in 1947. Two diploma-level pharmacy courses existed at the Madras Medical College and the Medical College, Vishakapatnam, in the Madras Presidency; the yearly intake was very small. The country's entire pharmaceutical legacy from the colonial rule portrays the poor state of pharmacy practice that came with independence. The higher status of pharmacy as seen today is the result of sustained efforts made over the last fifty years. The chemists and druggists of the earlier period were not a qualified group--they were more concerned with protecting their trade interests and lacked the professional component. Thus the development of the profession constituted a formidable task. Once it became evident that inadequate attention had been paid to the pharmaceutical component of the new health care system during the colonial period--within pharmaceutical circles during the early part of the twentieth century--change began to take place, with the establishment of the Drugs Enquiry Committee recognized as the most significant event of the time. The Report was submitted by the Committee in 1931, laying the foundation of the drugs and pharmacy statutes and development of the pharmacy profession in general. It was a coincidence that the year 1931 also witnessed an occurrence of potential significance; that was, the entry of Mahadeva Lal Schroff, a man with an indomitable spirit, into the pharmaceutical arena to lead and direct the making of modern pharmacy in India.