Pharmacy is one of the oldest organised health professions in Croatia. Its roots reach back more than seven centuries — from monastery pharmacies where friars prepared medicines from old recipes, to today's network of pharmacies that stay open around the clock. This short history explains how the profession grew alongside Croatian towns, and why a system of on-duty pharmacies still exists today.
Medieval beginnings
The first pharmacies on Croatian soil appeared in the coastal towns that traded briskly with the Mediterranean. The trade in spices, medicinal herbs and minerals brought knowledge of compounding medicines to Dalmatia long before it reached the interior.
The most famous example is the Friars Minor Pharmacy (Ljekarna Male braće) in Dubrovnik, founded in 1317 within the Franciscan monastery. At first it served only the friars, but it soon began supplying the citizens of Dubrovnik as well. It has operated continuously to this day, making it one of the oldest pharmacies in Europe that has never closed. The monastery still houses a museum with historic pharmacy vessels, scales and recipes.
Continental Croatia has deep roots too. The oldest surviving record of pharmacy practice in Zagreb dates to 1355, when the city records mention an apothecary named Jacob (Jacobus apothecarius). In later centuries, town statutes began to regulate pharmacies, set the prices of medicines and oversee their quality — the first steps toward a profession supervised by the civic authorities.
The pharmacy as a place of knowledge
In the medieval and early modern periods, a pharmacy was not merely a place to buy a medicine. The pharmacist was both craftsman and scientist: versed in medicinal plants, chemical processes, weights and measures, and often keeping notes on the composition of preparations. Alongside medicines, pharmacies sold spices, dyes, wax and other goods, which made them important trading hubs as well.
Preparations were made by hand, following recipes recorded in official manuals. The pharmacy thus became a keeper of practical knowledge passed from one generation to the next, long before the modern pharmaceutical industry existed.
The Austro-Hungarian era
During the 18th and 19th centuries, as part of the Habsburg Monarchy, pharmacy was placed on a systematic footing. Formal examinations, official medicine tariffs and regular inspection of pharmacies were introduced. Pharmacies were granted concessions, and their number was tied to the size of the population, so that no town would have too many or too few.
In this period pharmacies became a recognisable feature of every larger Croatian town. Many bore picturesque names — To the Black Eagle, To the Golden Lion — and occupied prominent buildings in the town centre. A number of pharmacies that still operate at the same addresses today date from this era.
The twentieth century and professionalisation
The twentieth century brought rapid professionalisation. With the establishment of university-level pharmacy education in Zagreb, pharmacy became an academic discipline grounded in chemistry, biology and medicine. Hand-compounded medicines gradually gave way to industrially produced ones, and the pharmacist increasingly became an expert in the safe and correct use of medicines.
After the Second World War, pharmacies were organised into a public network. The goal was to ensure that medicines were evenly available across the country, including smaller towns and rural areas. It is from this idea of constant availability that the system of on-duty service grew.
Modern pharmacy
With Croatian independence, the profession reorganised itself. The Croatian Pharmaceutical Chamber (Hrvatska ljekarnička komora) was founded in 1994 and has operated independently since 1995. The Chamber maintains the register of pharmacists, oversees continuing education and ethical standards, and represents the profession before state institutions.
Today pharmacies are part of a healthcare system in which they work closely with doctors and the health insurance fund. Beyond dispensing prescription and over-the-counter medicines, pharmacists advise patients, watch for possible side effects and interactions, and increasingly take part in public-health programmes.
On-duty pharmacies today
One thing has not changed since that medieval Dubrovnik pharmacy that never closed its doors: the need for a medicine keeps no office hours. That is why Croatian towns still maintain a system of on-duty pharmacies — pharmacies that stay open at night, on weekends and on holidays so that a medicine is available at any moment.
On-duty schedules are set by local pharmaceutical chambers and town authorities, and they change from week to week. This is where dezurna.net comes in: it gathers data from public sources in one place and answers a single question — which pharmacy is open right now. The centuries-old idea of an always-available pharmacy thus takes on a modern, digital form.