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50 free Pharmacy trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free pharmacy trivia questions with answers. These pharmacy trivia questions cover the profession from its beginnings to the modern chain drugstore. There is history: the first pharmacies in Baghdad, Frederick II's decree splitting doctors from apothecaries, the oldest surviving pharmacies in Tallinn and Florence, Dioscorides, the Ebers Papyrus, the show globe and where the Rx symbol comes from. Then the drugs: willow bark and aspirin, Fleming's mould and the 1945 Nobel, Banting and Best, morphine and Morpheus, quinine and gin, foxglove, ibuprofen invented at Boots, thalidomide and Frances Kelsey, the Tylenol murders, the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy that built the FDA, placebo Latin, generics, compounding, statins, warfarin and Viagra's accidental discovery. And the soda-fountain sideline: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper were all invented by pharmacists. Good for pharmacy students, a pharmacy-week quiz or a general science round. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
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Q 01The first pharmacies, or drug stores, were established in 754 in which city?
Baghdad
They arrived under the Abbasid Caliphate during the Islamic Golden Age; Avicenna later described some 700 preparations.
Q 02Which emperor's 1240 decree formally separated the professions of physician and apothecary?
Frederick II
The split is still the basis of the doctor-prescribes, pharmacist-dispenses model.
Q 03The oldest continuously operating pharmacy in its original premises, from at least 1422, is in which city?
Tallinn
The Town Hall Pharmacy sits on Tallinn's main square; Dubrovnik's Franciscan pharmacy dates from 1317.
Q 04The pharmacy claimed as the world's oldest, set up in 1221 in Santa Maria Novella, is in which city?
Florence
It now houses a perfume museum.
Q 05Which Greek physician wrote the five-volume De Materia Medica, covering more than 600 plants?
Dioscorides
He also coined the term materia medica.
Q 06The Ebers Papyrus, a record of ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge, dates from about when?
1550 BC
Even earlier, Sumerian cuneiform tablets recorded prescriptions.
Q 07The prescription symbol Rx comes from the Latin word 'recipe', meaning what?
Take
Medieval prescriptions began with the physician telling the apothecary to 'take' certain materials and compound them.
Q 08A show globe, the coloured-liquid glass vessel once displayed by druggists, served much the same purpose as what?
A barber's pole
It let illiterate customers find the apothecary; elsewhere the mortar and pestle was the usual symbol.
Q 09Apothecaries' herbal and chemical work is regarded as a precursor to which modern sciences?
Chemistry and pharmacology
They also gave general medical advice and did work now done by surgeons and obstetricians.
Q 10Aspirin's precursor, salicin, comes from the bark of which tree?
Willow
It has been used for its health effects for at least 2,400 years.
Q 11Which German company first produced pure acetylsalicylic acid in 1897 and named it Aspirin?
Bayer
Felix Hoffmann usually gets the credit, though Arthur Eichengrün may deserve it.
Q 12Aspirin is not generally given to children with viral infections because of the risk of what?
Reye syndrome
It remains a workhorse for pain, fever, inflammation and blood thinning in adults.
Q 13Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by which Scottish physician?
Alexander Fleming
He named it in March 1929 to avoid repeating 'mould broth filtrate'; Florey and Chain purified it at Oxford in 1940.
Q 21Paracetamol is known in the United States by which name?
Acetaminophen
Overdose is the leading cause of acute liver failure in many countries.
Q 22The 1982 Tylenol murders, in which capsules were laced with cyanide, led directly to what?
Tamper-evident packaging and anti-tampering laws
At least seven people died; over-the-counter powder-filled capsules were abandoned.
Q 23Thalidomide, sold over the counter in West Germany from 1957, was kept off the US market by which FDA reviewer?
Frances Oldham Kelsey
More than 10,000 infants worldwide were harmed by the drug taken for morning sickness.
Q 14Who shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for penicillin?
Fleming, Florey and Chain
Fleming's student Cecil Paine had used it on an eye infection as early as 1930.
Q 15Insulin was first isolated in 1921 by Banting and Best in the Toronto laboratory of which professor?
John Macleod
Banting shared his Nobel money with Best; Macleod shared his with Collip.
Q 16Banting won the 1923 Nobel Prize for insulin at what age, still a record for the medicine prize?
32
He shared it with John Macleod.
Q 17Morphine, isolated from opium in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, is named after whom?
Morpheus, Greek god of dreams
It is believed to be the first medicinal alkaloid ever isolated from a plant.
Q 18Quinine, the malaria drug, was first isolated in 1820 from the bark of which tree native to Peru?
Cinchona
British colonials in India reputedly mixed the bitter tonic with gin, inventing the gin and tonic.
Q 19William Withering identified the heart drug digitoxin in the 1780s from which plant?
Foxglove
He noticed a dropsy patient improve after a folk remedy and traced the effect to the purple foxglove.
Q 20Ibuprofen was discovered in 1961 by Stewart Adams and John Nicholson while working for which British chemist?
Boots
It was first sold as Brufen; Adams reportedly first tested it on his own hangover.
Q 24Thalidomide was approved in 2006 to treat which cancer, among other conditions?
Multiple myeloma
The FDA approved it for multiple myeloma in 2006; it is also used for graft-versus-host disease and complications of leprosy.
Q 25Which 1937 mass poisoning by a drug made with a toxic solvent prompted the US Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act?
The Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster
Franklin Roosevelt signed the new law in June 1938.
Q 26Which US president signed the Pure Food and Drug Act, the 'Wiley Act', in 1906?
Theodore Roosevelt
It was the foundation of what became the FDA.
Q 27The word 'placebo' is Latin for what?
I shall please
Its negative twin, nocebo, means 'I shall harm'.
Q 28A generic drug may be sold once what happens to the original brand-name drug?
Its patents expire
The FDA requires generics to be bioequivalent to the brand.
Q 29Compounding pharmacies exist to do what?
Prepare custom medications for individuals
That might mean a liquid instead of a tablet, a special dose, or leaving out an inactive ingredient.
Q 30Coca-Cola was first sold on 8 May 1886 at Jacob's Pharmacy in which city, for five cents a glass?
Atlanta
Inventor John Pemberton was a pharmacist seeking a substitute for his morphine habit.