Formulae of oath and licensing of pharmacists during the Napoleonic Italian Republic and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy

This study presents selected unpublished documents that concern the completion of the pharmacy degree programme and its corresponding qualifying exam, in accordance with the reforms of the Napoleonic Italian Republic (1802-1805) and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805-1814). The Law on Public Education of 4 September 1802 and the Study and Discipline Plans for National Universities of 1803 stated that pharmacists had to study for three years at one of the national universities in order to obtain an academic degree. These reforms also declared that, after graduating, a further exam was required before pharmacists could freely exercise their profession. The first remarkable document is the one containing the oath taken by pharmacy students upon obtaining their academic degree. The oath is very detailed and accurately describes the expectations that the new Italian Government placed on pharmacists, as well as all the duties that they had to fulfil. Among the documents of the Ufficio Centrale Medico, Chirurgico, Farmaceutico (Central Medical, Surgical and Pharmaceutical Office) – the body that at the time was responsible for qualifying health professionals – there are the Office regulations, with all the rules concerning the pharmacists’ qualifying exam and their proclamation. There is also the oath formula that pharmacists read aloud at the end of their final exam. This oath was more concise than the oath taken at the end of university studies and, in this case, it was the same as the one taken by physicians and surgeons. What is also remarkable in these documents is the special qualification that was granted to those most deserving pharmacists who passed the exam with excellent marks: the possibility of producing and selling large quantities of chemical-pharmaceutical compounds to other pharmacists.