Are we losing our language - Chemists vs Pharmacies ?

[Amended to include Convert Links Automatically]
Can anyone explain why chemists no longer seem to exist? Every other chemist shop on every high street in England seems to have morphed into a "pharmacy"? Even Boots no longer calls itself "Boots the Chemists" which is was known as for decades. When did the change start? And why? What's the difference between a chemist and a pharmacist?

At least we haven't gone Stateside [as we do with most things] and call them drugstores. Wonder if it's anything to do with the fact that chemists at one time made the drugs whereas now they just dispense drugs that other companies have made?

A pharmacist concentrates on pharmaceutical chemistry which is the part of chemistry (pharmaceutics) that deals with medicines. So 'pharmacy', used in the way you describe, is actually more accurate than chemist. So is drug store. I understood that the earliest pharmacists were called apothecaries, unless you want to include witch doctors as part of the same profession.

Maybe. Or perhaps "pharmacy" sounds more posh/European. Maybe a chemist/pharmacist could explain the difference. Certainly we do seem to be losing basic ingredients from the shelves - all those useful household basics like ammonia, beeswax, iodine and so on are fast becoming unobtainable. And before instant tanning lotions became available, a handful of potassium permanganate turned our legs a wonderful and hideous deep orange. Now everything is incorporated into a branded product at an inflated price. In fact, Boots seems now to be nothing more than a glorified cosmetics shop.

I have to say I do like the drugstore word, sounds vaguely illicit and very exotic!

To Baggy: Thanks for that explanation!

My father was a chemist - not a pharmacist. Using the latter avoids confusion.

According to Chambers dictionary, 'chemist' and related words come, via Greek, from Egypt. Pharmacy comes from Greek.

Like a lot of 'English' words.

thers a lovely shop in Coldstream that is now a pet shop but used to be a chemists. Got all the old wooden drawers with names written on such as [I think] opium? Whatever is was I asked the shopkeeper if I could sniff it .

Of course, we could revert to the older 'apothecary'.

What about podiatry? You can only find a chiropodist if you look very hard. And
train station???????????????? 'Bus' station yes, but only because the default is/used to be a place where trains were caught/waited for, boarded. So what about 'tram' station, 'liner' station, 'plane'..................

Shut up Dig, and go home.

Ha! Ha! Let it out, dig, let it out! You'll feel better for it.

While I've been working on my garden I've unearthed several little glass bottles; in fact I keep wanting to dig the garden so I can find some more. I'd love to know what tinctures [I LOVE that word] or potions they contained. Living in a horrid newish box of a house it gives me a nice sense of the past.

Crimson, yes isn't tincture a good word. And I love " unguents".

And emollients.

DH is a Chemist but not worked at a Pharmacy he worked at Lever Bros
perfecting the Chemicals etc that went into soap-powders and cleaning products
We have an old fashioned Chemist shop here in New Brighton that sells everything that you could think of,and it's a pleasure to brouse around when
you have a few minute's to spare,lovely Bromley soaps and old fashioned
lavender smellies and every potion for lumps and bumps that is known to man I
think

Tincture, unguents, emollients and of course, embrocation. Yummy!

Podiatrist and chiropodists are very different. The former is qualified to operate on the feet but the latter is not. Of course they could be both.

What about "loft" "attic"?

helshea, we just say "in the roof".

Jangly, that makes much more sense!

When did the wireless become a radio? I'm sure there is a good reason, and there are many differences, but my dad's DAB radio is still a wireless to him.

I'm still saying 'the pictures' and my daughter corrects me by saying 'cinema' better than 'the movies' I suppose.

And crime seems to have been eradicated. Unfortunately we get a lot of criminality in its place.

Yes, that's an odd one. When they used to have wires they were called wirelesses and now the wires have gone making them truly wire-less they are called radios. Maybe it happened when transistor radios came in? Then again, why weren't those called transistor wirelesses?