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VOL. 76 (4), 459-478, 2010 INNOVATION VS. TRADITION: THE ELECTION…

The genesis of the European pharmaceutical industry is not indif-
ferent to this situation as a whole; even though, together with the so-
cial factors, economic or political definers of any type of industrial ac-
tivity others of a scientific and technological character should be
considered as well. Among the most important is the appearance of the
active principles of synthesis and semi-synthesis as well as the arrival
of new pharmaceutical forms, more adaptable to the requirements of
large-scale elaboration demanded by the new pharmaceutical industry.

From the middle of the 19th century, the industry of active princi-
ples and, above all, those relative to chemical synthesis of medicines
from carbon, were dominated by Germany, thanks to the hegemony
in the field of organic chemistry of industrial application. Other coun-
tries in central Europe, such as Switzerland, or those of Anglo-Saxon
culture such as England, also tried to get a look into this market, prin-
cipally after the outbreak of the First World War.

The Mediterranean Europa —France, Italy or Spain— could never
compete with the large pharmaceutical chemical industries established
in ‘Protestant Europe’; their contribution to the development of the drug
industry would come with the adaptation of pharmaceutical tradition
to large-scale elaboration, principally through the creation of new serv-
ices of forms of drugs and the industries for their commercialisation.

The modernisation of pharmaceutical technique came about in the
last 30 years of the 19th century as a result of the efforts of the phar-
macy collective at an attempt at compatibility with the traditional
modus operandi and the new scientific doctrines. With the exception of
injectable vials, invented in 1886 after the development of asepsis, the
new pharmaceutical forms which would revolutionize the therapy and
the professional habits of medical and chemists professionals, came into
being throughout the long period between 1833 and 1853. During this
time, the principal forms of oral administration were invented: gelatine
capsules (1833), pills (1843) and amylaceous capsules (1853).

The perfection of these preparations was intimately linked to the
birth and development of the drugs industry as their elaboration was
undertaken with the use of specific machinery. The existence of forms
for the drugs is therefore, necessary for their industrial development.
However, and although this seems paradoxical, these were not invent-
ed by the large pharmaceutical laboratories but by the chemists, in

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