Inside an historic chemist shop 100 years ago

Thailand pharmaceutical manufacturers already produced a wide range of medical drugs and pharmaceuticals for the human and veterinarian sectors. Many major international pharmaceutical companies either got manufacturing facilities here in Thailand or source many of their products from Thai drug companies. There are of course many advantages of outsourcing production most of these of a financial nature. However the lower standards regarding regulation by governmental bodies must also be an important factor.

Pharmaceutical retailing reminds me much of the old days in England. If there was a medical problem in the family the first port of call was the local chemist shop. Here the assistant would listen to the problem and offer a quick fix. For more complicated or serious medical conditions the chemist would emerge from the back room and 'examine' the patient and then the suitable pills, syrups and lotions would be counted out, bottled, bagged up and the patient sent on his way. Rare visits to the 'real' doctor would always result in a prescription being issued. I was later to find out that many of these were for harmless placebo type products. Patients were never happy after waiting for hours to leave the doctor's surgery empty handed.