## **FIFTY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF PHARMACY** 1 JANUARY - 31 DECEMBER 2021 ## **1. Annual General Meeting 2021** The 54[th] Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on-line using Zoom software on Monday 18[th] October 2021 at 4pm. Our AGMs usually are held inperson during the weekend of our annual conference. The 2021 AGM and the preceding one, planned for March 2020, were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. At the AGM the following Trustees (Office Bearers) were confirmed: President: Dr Chris Duffin Vice-President: Professor Mark Nesbitt Hon. Treasurer: Ms Selina Hurley Hon. Secretary: Mr Roy Allcorn The 2020 Annual Accounts were agreed unanimously by the Members who had logged into the meeting. ## **2.** ## **Meetings of Committee** The Committee met three times during the year (8[th] February, 17[th] May and 18[th] October), all these meetings being held on-line: Name Comments Mr R T Allcorn Dr S C Anderson Mr J Betts (rejoined 2021) Mrs D Bishop Dr C Duffin Dr S Ellis (to 18/10/21) Ms S Hurley Ms B Hudson Dr M H Jepson Mr M Johnson (previously co-opted) Prof M Nesbitt Ms C Walker Committee membership changes in 2021: Peter Homan was unable to attend the February meeting and sadly died on 22[nd] March 2021. Both Kim Walker and Michelle Wake stepped down from the Committee early in the year and did not log into any Committee meetings. Following the AGM John Crellin accepted an invitation to join the Committee. ## **3. Membership** Total membership (including Honorary Members) at 31[st] December was 139. Movements in the year having been as follows: New members: 21 / Deceased: 3 / Removed, Lapsed, Resigned: 5 Five members continued to have subscription payment shortfalls and it was concluded reluctantly that there was no easy way of resolving this other than to suspend once again their September mailings. ## **4. Meetings/Events** No in-person meetings or other events, such as our Summer visit or our joint meeting with a School of Pharmacy, were possible during 2021. ## **5. On-line Lecture Programme** A series of free on-line discussions and talks were arranged as a replacement for our evening presentations. These were done via the Zoom platform and quite early on, for the lectures from February onwards, it was decided that bookings and ticketing would be administered using the Eventbrite system. The schedule of these lectures was as follows: **11[th] January** – Panel discussion - “What is the future for Pharmacy History?” facilitated by a small group which included pharmacy historians and curators. **22[nd] February** - A joint event with the Faculty of the History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Society of Apothecaries. Dr Freya Harrison (Warwick University) delivered the Faculty’s Sydenham Lecture speaking about “Unlocking the Medieval Medicine Cabinet” **.** **26[th] April** - "From Apollo to the ISS: the history of space pharmacy" by Dr Christiane Staiger (Neu Isenberg, Germany). **24[th] May** - “The contribution of the Cairo Geniza to the study of medieval Arabic medicine” by Professor Efraim Lev (Haifa University, Israel). **21[st] June** – “How Empire Turned People into Patients: Big Pharma’s Early Modern Roots” by Zachary Dorner (University of Maryland, USA). **13[th] September** - “Women Apothecaries and the Law in Early Modern Spain: Three Case Studies” by Dr Ted. Bergman (University of St Andrews). **11[th] October** - _**“**_ Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot in the Pharmacy Museum” by Joao Neto (Pharmacy Museum, Lisbon). **15[th] November** - “Half Lives: Tales from the Radium Era” by Lucy Santos. **6[th] December** : _**“**_ Coptic Pharmacological Prescriptions” by Anne Grons (University of Marburg). According to Eventbrite, during 2021 we: - Hosted 11 events (excluding 11[th] January but including the on-line conference sessions) - Welcomed 1648 attendees - Had 262 ‘loyal’ attendees (those who had attended 2 or more meetings) - - Had 986 people who were new to our events ## **6** . **Annual Spring Conference March 2021 held on-line** For the second year running it was not possible to convene an in-person conference. Below is part of the report on the event compiled by Briony Hudson, our Conference Organizer, which was presented in full to our May committee meeting: “Having taken the decision to run the 2021 conference on Zoom because of pandemic restrictions, we drew on the planned programme from the 2020 postponed conference for speakers, alongside calling for other short talks from members. We also had planned 3 short films to launch on the BSHP’s new YouTube channel with a “Behind the scenes at the museum” theme. Ultimately, we uploaded two films, one from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum and another from the Thackray Museum of Medicine. The final programme comprised: ## **Friday 26[th] March 2021** **‘Behind the scenes’ film -** Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum – Made available on YouTube. **Talks session:** 'Pharmacy history: people and places' - Chair: Chris Duffin - Roy Allcorn, BSHP Honorary Secretary, a short tribute to Past President Peter Homan. - Emily Betz – “Francis Bernard (1628-1698): A Seventeenth-Century Apothecary and Physician” (Burnby Memorial Bursary talk 2021). - Norma Cox – “Drug Stores 1870-1920”. - Soh Xi Ken – “A holistic view of the evolution of pharmacy education: a case study of the University of Sunderland's School of Pharmacy” (Pharmacy History Research Grant talk 2020). ## **Saturday 27[th] March 2021** **Talks session:** 'Reflecting on pharmacy history through material culture' - Chair: Selina Hurley - Jemma Houghton – “An unnatural obsession with bottles - the use of Citizen Science and interdisciplinary approaches in researching materia medica collections”. - Chris Duffin – “Early Modern PPE”. - John Crellin – “My Life, Written by Luer, an hypodermic syringe”. ## **Sunday 28 March 2021** **‘Behind the scenes’ film -** Thackray Museum of Medicine – Available on YouTube. **Talks session:** 'Exploring pharmacy's global history' - Chair: Briony Hudson - Kim Walker & Mark Nesbitt - “Just the tonic: quinine cures and cocktails”. - - Nick Wood - “All aboard the Prosperous Solomon! The transatlantic trade of Thomas Mayleigh, Quaker apothecary”. - Sebestian Kroupa “Medical knowledge in transit between Manila and London: Philippine materia medica lost and found in translation” (Burnby Memorial Bursary 2020 talk). ## **Logistics** The event took a team effort to run, with committee members Chris Duffin, Matthew Johnston, Mark Nesbitt and Briony Hudson working to set up the Zoom meetings, Eventbrite event pages and linked emails, plus live streams on YouTube. We had numerous meetings and email exchanges to get everything set up, but technically the whole conference ran extremely smoothly. Having a copy of each speaker’s presentation slides proved worthwhile as, for example, Briony was able to take over John Crellin’s presentation when he hit technical issues. Thankyous were also due to Selina Hurley for chairing the Saturday session and to Roy Allcorn for responding to Eventbrite and other email enquiries and troubleshooting. Each session required a minimum of 3 people to run – Zoom host, session chair and YouTube monitor - with an additional one in place in case of problems. Matthew also set up follow-up emails from Eventbrite to all those who registered for each session, reminding them of subsequent events, and details of BSHP’s other activities, website and social media. All 3 sessions were recorded for and made available on Zoom and YouTube. We learnt that the YouTube link for the live session could continue to be used to access the recordings, and a number of people made use of this in the days after the event. Briony also edited all 3 sessions to make “clean copies” and take out Norma Cox’s presentation which was not made available after the event due to image rights issues. The edited recordings were made public 4 weeks after the conference and their availability publicised on Facebook and Twitter. ## **Promotion** Matthew and Briony worked to update an existing publicity spreadsheet specifically for the conference, and shared sending targeted emails between them. The conference was also promoted regularly on Facebook and Twitter. Axel Helmstedter provided direct email contacts for all of the ISHP member societies, which enabled us to publicise it to an international pharmacy history audience. The spreadsheet here was used also to promote our evening online lectures. ## **Statistics** After the event an analysis was done of the tickets “sold” via Eventbrite for the three days of the conference. This included figures for Zoom viewings and YouTube accesses for the recordings. ## **7. Pharmaceutical Historian** Four issues of the _Pharmaceutical Historian : An International Journal for the History of Pharmacy_ (Vol. 50, Nos. 1,2,3,4) were published during the year in March, June, September and December. Stuart Anderson continued with the editorship following the current arrangement to publish the journal on-line (with Ingenta) and thus internationally with the International Society for the History of Pharmacy (ISHP). Printed copies continued to be produced and sent to all members who wanted them. The December 2021 printed issue, for the second year running, made reference to an article which, due to its length, was being published only as online content via Ingenta. ## **8. BSHP Gazette** Four issues of the Gazette, our quarterly newsletter, were produced and mailed out to coincide with the four issues of the _Pharmaceutical Historian._ This continued to fulfil the aim of having four pages of news, updates, details of events past and forthcoming and other information including, where relevant, a selection of photographs reproduced in full colour. ## **9.** ## **BSHP Website** (www.bshp.org) Our website was kept updated with, for example, new information about our past and forthcoming virtual events, this included details of the latest winners of our awards. A number of minor changes arising from the AGM were made including and an amended list of contacts. Many new membership applications were received via the web-based form and paid for using the associated on-line PayPal payment system. ## **10. Awards** Changes were opportune this year with the Society’s two existing award schemes. This was due mainly to the fact that the Burnby Memorial Bursary had reached its intended 10-year life span. Also, there had been no applications for the Research Grant in 2021. Given the death of Peter Homan it was decided that the Society in 2022 would concentrate on offering something akin to a Bursary scheme in his memory and bearing his name. ## **11. Appreciations** The Committee wishes to put on record its thanks to Catherine Walker at the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for her help and support. This was especially true for the speed at which the display case of a selection of Peter Homan’s bequeathed collection of pharmacy artefacts were put on display in the Museum. We are also indebted to Associaction Enterprises for continuing to undertake various Secretariat and office-based duties for the Society, especially given various difficulties caused by the pandemic for many such bodies. |**Accounts 2021 British Society History of Pharmacy**
**INCOME**|| |---|---| |Member subscriptions 2021|£3,160.37| |Member subscriptions 2022|£60.00| |Peter Homan Bursary|£1,300| |Interest|£363.03| |Royalties via Royal Pharmaceutical Societyof Great Britain|£1.89| |**TOTAL INCOME**
**EXPENDITURE**|£4,885.29| ||| |Researchgrant|£500.00| |Pharmaceutical Historianprintingand expenses|£1,677.74| |BSHM, ISHP and contribution to ISHP Pharmaceutical Historian|£857.07| |Public liabilityinsurance|£141.04| |Association Enterprises Services|£2,147.43| |Conference refunds|£900| |Membershiprefunds or donations in lieu of refunds|£59| |Talks expenditure(Zoom)|£238.33| |**TOTAL EXPENDITURE**
**DEFICIT**
**INVESTMENT**
CAF Shawbrook deposit
**CURRENT ASSESTS**|£6,520.99| ||£1,635.70
45,000| |Bank account as of 31/12/2021(includesprepayfor 2022)|1,471| |Virgin Money|1615.38| |CAF Shawbrook deposit|45,000| ||48,086|