Professional Aspirations and the Limits of Occupational Autonomy: The Case of Pharmacy in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

This study of the professionalization of pharmacy in nineteenth-century Ontario investigates the ambivalent nature of pharmacists' work which linked it both to the professions and to mercantile activity. Despite the profession's ambiguous position, and the contest for authority with the orthodox medical profession, pharmacists in nineteenth-century Ontario, as elsewhere, were largely successful in securing their professional bona fides. Based primarily on an analysis of nineteenth-century medical and pharmaceutical journals, this article is an initial attempt to understand the conflicts which helped define pharmacists' place in the Ontario occupational hierarchy in general, and the health services sector, in particular.