125 stories for 125 years

John Kruse

John Kruse, a German-born pharmacist who practised in Melbourne, was a foundation member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria in 1857. He would become a member of the Pharmacy Board of Victoria when it was established two decades later and played a role in the future college of pharmacy, the school of the society, founded in 1881.

From its inception, the society aimed to promote scientific knowledge and research and, in this respect, a school of pharmacy was its ultimate goal. In 1860 John, the honorary secretary of the society, hoped for ‘the establishment of lectures and a library, and bye and bye a school of pharmacy on the model of the one in England’.

In 1878 the society’s council received a proposal from John to establish a school of pharmacy. He wrote, ‘I believe it would suffice for the commencement to have a centrally situated room in Melbourne fixed up with the appliances requisite to execute and illustrate chemical operations on a small scale for which purpose a bench with some gas burners, a supply of porcelain dishes, glass retorts and receiver, a quantity of glass tubing and a few other small chemical apparatuses and a black board would be required. The room should also be furnished with shelving to hold bottles with chemical tests for specimens of chemicals of materia medica and pharmacology’.

John began offering preliminary courses at his home at 60 Hanover Street, Fitzroy, naming his establishment the Fitzroy School of Chemistry and Pharmacy and for a time the Melbourne School of Pharmacy. In the Chemist and Druggist of April 1881, an advertisement appeared wherein John reminded chemists’ assistants and apprentices of his school of pharmacy at Hanover Street and that it was recognised by the board: ‘I continue my course in elementary Practical Chemistry, Botany, Morphology and Classification of Plants, Materia Medica and Practical Pharmacy. I also continue instructing by correspondence’.

During this time John was appointed by the board to lecture in materia medica, pharmacy and botany at the Industrial and Technological Museum’s school, which was called the Melbourne School of Pharmacy. It took the name ‘the Victorian College of Pharmacy’ in 1921. The president of the society submitted the syllabus of the school of pharmacy and requested its recognition in March 1882. The board decided to resume direct control of the school and contracted John as foundation director and sole lecturer to deliver the session’s lectures from March to November 1882. His term as director ended in 1885. The classes were held at John’s school and the board recognised the establishment as a school of pharmacy but its approval was subject to removal at any time when more suitable premises could be obtained.

A student wrote 30 years later that the group had a ‘united appreciation of the ability and self-sacrificing labours of the late Mr. John Kruse, whose enthusiasm and geniality of manner made a distinct impression on many of us … in spite of the poor accommodation and lack of apparatus of those days, we had a warm place in our hearts for the gifted and honoured gentleman who was our director’. Edwin Church was a student in the 1884 session and recalled that, because John had emigrated in later life, ‘his command of the English language was not the best. When he got a bit excited he forgot his English and reverted to German’.

Kruse’s Fluid Magnesia, just one of the many products he developed, is still available today and the Eucalyptus kruseana is named in honour of him. The plant, part of the Myrtaceae family, is a very distinctive species with closely-spaced, stemless rounded leaves and greenish yellow flowers. It is a popular ornamental in drier parts of southern Australia and in central Australia because of its mallee habit, flower colour and unusual leaves. It is restricted to three areas east of Kalgoorlie.

Source: Bomford, J, Victorian College of Pharmacy: 125 years of history, 1881–2006, 2006.