ÎNFIINȚAREA FACULTĂȚILOR DE MEDICINĂ VETERINARĂ ȘI DE FARMACIE ÎN CADRUL UNIVERSITĂȚII DIN BUCUREȘTI
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FACULTIES OF VETERINARY MEDICINE AND PHARMACY WITHIN BUCHAREST UNIVERSITY

Summary/Abstract: The University of Bucharest was established in 1864 with three faculties in its structure (Philosophy and Letters, Law and Sciences). Until the end of 19th century another two faculties were integrated: Medicine and Theology. However, other sciences quickly developed to a certain point where their development was hindered by the form of organization, like veterinary medicine and pharmacy. Along with medicine, they were all part of a necessary modernization of the Romanian society and all were starting to build an increase in status and attention from the State through the sustained actions carried by Carol Davila. If medicine got early the needed frame of development for having the possibility to train physicians in various specializations in a faculty from 1869, the cases of both veterinary medicine and pharmacy were in different situations. Professors in this field of studies explained the importance of having these types of education at the level of higher education and then in a new form of organization, in a faculty under the structure of the University of Bucharest. All of these were obtained after decades of reports and other documents generated to highlight the needs of these types of education and also of a modernized society. The first success was that, gradually, veterinary medicine and pharmacy were recognized as being part of higher education. Still, no faculties were organized for them. After World War I passed and its difficult to manage consequences started to affect the society the State was convinced to upgrade these institutions from the status of Superior School to Faculty. Veterinary Medicine was the first to be organized as a faculty under the University of Bucharest, starting from 1921. Then, two years later, Pharmacy undergone the same treatment and became the seventh faculty of the University. Practically, under this structure from 1923, the University of Bucharest functioned until the beginning of communism, in late ՚40s.The establishment of both the veterinary medicine and pharmacy as faculties was a sustained process that had as main driver two personalities and also professional didactical staff, and of course, students demanding the change. For the veterinary medicine, the central role was taken by Constantin Motaș, while for pharmacy important was the personality of Ștefan Minovici. They were regarded as important scientists in their fields of activity and also were capable of following closely the bureaucratic challenge of convincing the State that it is in its interest and also of the society as a whole, to have more and better trained professionals in veterinary medicine and pharmacy. Arguments after arguments and documents after documents were conceived to support this idea and in this study I follow this process, retracing some of its most important milestones, from the situation of Medicine in general in the period of World War I and concluding with the laws which ruled the establishing of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy under the structure of University of Bucharest, in the benefit of the Romanian society and its course towards modernization.

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