Contribution of the Faculty of Pharmacy of Santiago de Compostela to the development of the spanish scientific research in the first third of the 20th century (1900-1936)

Abstract

The Faculty of Pharmacy of Santiago de Compostela was founded in 1857, but research activities did not start until the beginning of the 20th century. The new Spanish regulations promoting the experimentation at universities and the stages of professors and recently graduated students outside Spain contributed to generate a remarkable research group in a provincial university. The excessive university centralism at that time in Spain and the characteristics of the headquarters of the faculty —a 16th century Renaissance palace— hindered, in general, the research development. However, the scientific spirit of professors and students, and their work were imposed and they achieved an estimable status in pharmacy research in Galicia. The facilities were the staff's highest priority and it raised more than a protest. A remarkable investment in apparatuses and laboratory materials was carried out and researchers started to publish original research papers in local journals, such as the «Revista de farmacia», published by their own University. In the previous years to the Spanish Civil War (1936) the research status in drug development and the background of the staff and students were important, allowing them to join the military laboratory that Franco’s army created at the faculty of pharmacy. The research work continued in a small scale and was specially focused on the production of «copy drugs» copying European specific drugs which were scarce at that time. The first third of the 20th century was the germ of the great research prestige that the Faculty of Pharmacy of Santiago de Compostela enjoys at present.