Bibliography: pages 203-223. / The medical practitioner, nurse, midwife, dentist and pharmacist have played significant roles in the history of South Africa. Various histories have dealt with their expansion into separate, clearly identifiable, professions. Nothing of a scholarly nature has been written about pharmacy in South Africa, and this work attempts to fill a part of the gap. The thesis concentrates on the major issues which affected the development of the profession and attempts to establish the reasons for the creation of the first professional society in the Eastern Cape in 1885.