Dean Emlen Painter

Dean, 1878–1883

The first dean of the California College of Pharmacy, Emlen Painter, was born in 1844 in Concord, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1866, moving to California a year later. He began as a dispensing clerk, and owned his own business by 1883.

While pursuing his pharmacy career, he was a primary force in the establishment of the California College of Pharmacy in 1872, serving as trustee, president, professor of pharmacy, and as dean of the College from 1878 to 1883. He then moved to New York due to failing health, and continued his career there.

He was a trustee for the College of Pharmacy in New York and a member of the Committee on National Formulary, representing California pharmacists. In 1889 he became president of the American Pharmaceutical Association, appointing the committee for the convention organized to revise the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), the official pharmacopeia of the United States. But before the convention was held he died of tuberculosis, on January 15, 1890, in New York City.

It was said of him, “He has done more for the advancement of pharmacy than any other man upon the Pacific Slope.”

Source: Bulletin of Pharmacy, Volume 4.