Since it's American Pharmacist Month, let’s build on last week’s post about Ben Franklin to recognize another Colonial Era “first,” Elizabeth Gooking Greenleaf first female apothecary in what was then the 13 American colonies who opened a shop in Boston in 1727. She ran the shop with her husband, Daniel Greenleaf, a former Congregational Church minister, until her death in 1762. Their apothecary was later crucial to the Revolutionary War effort; the Greenleaf Apothecary provided medical supplies to the Continental Army for the duration of the war and even before the war started.
To help ring-in American Pharmacist Month, we remember Benjamin Franklin today for all the reasons you’d expect, but also for his support of Philadelphia Hospital and, in it, the first hospital pharmacy in the U.S., which opened in 1751.