At eighty-two, Alice Merle Stanley Henry, is one of the very few remaining registered pharmacists of her era. A time when doctors wrote prescriptions in Latin abbreviations, and the medicines had to be compounded by the pharmacist.
Last Sunday, Merle, the name she is well-known by, comfortably celebrated the opening of National Pharmacy Week with her younger peers at Crowne Plaza.
Although the petite, silver-haired lady, is no longer administrator or dispenser, she is the pharmacist employed by J.N. Harriman & Company Limited for the last eight years. "Harrimans are importers of controlled drugs and must have a pharmacist legally responsible for import and withdrawing from Customs and for everything else that is legal, like change of premises for the pharmaceuticals, which just happened. The Ministry of Health must inspect to be assured all is in order and legal" explained the well-kept octogenarian.
Merle was just 17 years when she completed her Senior Cambridge examinations at Bishop Anstey High School in 1937, with thoughts of studying to be an architect. Her mother, the late Amy Henry, matron of the Anglican Teachers' Hostel on Woodford Street, suggested that pharmacy would be a very rewarding profession. By age 18, Merle was apprenticed to Percy Phillip, the pharmacist at the Royal Pharmacy which was opposite the then Central Market.
In December 1938, she sat her first Pharmacy exam, the first part of the Inorganic Chemistry exam, for which she had attended lectures by Dr Ernest Lawrence at the Royal Victoria Institute on Frederick Street. "I had no prior knowledge of chemistry as the girl schools at that time were not as privileged as the boys. I was the only female student and one day Dr Lawrence referred to the students as 'gentlemen and said to me: please consider yourself included." The next year, Merle, attained 100% in the Inorganic Chemistry exam and Dr Simeon Hayes, the examiner, showed the paper to her employer. She became an Assistant Pharmacist.
It was time for Merle to move on and at age twenty, she joined W.C.Ross & Company on Frederick Street as a student pharmacist, and continued her studies. In December 1945, she graduated with a Diploma in Pharmacy and was appointed a Pharmacist with the firm. After five years, she resigned and journeyed to the United States where she spent six months. On her return home in March 1951, Merle joined the Public Service as a Pharmacist but was not confirmed until she had served for four years at the Port of Spain General Hospital "there were no vacancies at that time." Bureaucracy was negatively at work for the young woman who was doing a job in what was then a man's world.
Moving around in the Service, she had stints at the Masson Hospital and Central Stores at Long Circular Road; the Tobago General Hospital; and returned to POS Gen and acted as Assistant Senior Pharmacist from time to time. This was the time when student pharmacists were trained at POS and San Fernando Hospitals, and the pharmacists were responsible for their practical tutoring and guidance in dispensing principles.
Dispensing in those days covered two areas, preparation of the products that were dispensed, an art that is no longer used. "Now the drugs are imported and sold over the counter" says Merle "and apart from those medicines, there was dispensing for what was called ward use. So you were handing medicines to patients who came to the clinics and, as well, percentage solutions for injections had to be sterilised for the wards. We prepared the solution to a particular strength. It was a very technical procedure."
In 1976, five years away from her retirement in September 1980, Merle was finally appointed 'Senior Pharmacist. A bachelor lady with no children, Merle was not about to sit at home twiddling her thumbs and in June 1981, accepted the appointment as Pharmacist with Oscar Francois Limited, and enjoyed a ten year stint with the company. By March 1994, she joined J.N.Harriman & Co Ltd where she continues to be employed.
She remains a member of the Young Woman's Christian Association and the Port of Spain Soroptimist Club "this gives me something to put my teeth into. I just came back from celebrating Friendship Day with the Soroptimists of Tobago."
All in all, says Merle Henry "It was a good life for me. God has blessed me greatly with good health up to this my eighty-second year and my prayer always is: You have all my future in your hands Lord. I need you to guide me every step of the way."