History of the development of pharmaceutical chemistry in Münster/Westphalia.

The year 1886 can be regarded as the founding year of the subject of pharmacy in Münster - since 1875 there had been uniform pharmaceutical examination regulations for the whole of the German Empire - when the Flückiger student Paul Arthur Meyer (Strasbourg, Göttingen) accepted the appointment to the extraordinariate for "pharmaceutics" (pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacognosy) at the then Royal Theological-Philosophical Academy. Meyer belonged as head ("conductor") of the Dept. of Pharmac. Chemie to the Chemical Institute, which was located in the former university garden on the Aa River, and gave the first lectures in the winter semester of 1886/87. Efforts to expand the laboratories were unsuccessful, as were his successors in office, Georg Max Julius Kassner (1891-1926) and Friedrich von Bruchhausen (1926-1931), who also sought a new institute building; he accepted a call to Marburg in 1891. In 1902, after the establishment of the Faculty of Law, the Academy was elevated to the status of a university, and in 1907 it was given the name Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität.

With Hans Paul Kaufmann, who was appointed personal full professor from Jena to Münster in 1931, the pharmaceutical-chemical laboratory, which had been expanded by several rooms, gained its independence. The appointment promise to establish an own institute could not be realized for economic reasons. At Kaufmann's suggestion, the government finally acquired the private house at Piusallee 7, which belonged to the big businessman Althoff, in 1933 and converted it into an institute, the "Institute for Pharmacy and Chemical Technology," which was inaugurated on July 7, 1934. Although badly damaged, the institute survived the turmoil of war, housed the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department until 1966, was the Institute of Food Chemistry until 1997, and was demolished in the fall of 1999.

Hans Paul Kaufmann, who became emeritus professor in 1958, already tried to convince the responsible authorities of the need to establish a modern institute. However, it was not until his successor Karl Ernst Schulte, who had been appointed from Berlin to Münster, that a research institute adequate to the scientific requirements was built. The new building was erected near the site planned for the natural science center ("Coesfelder Kreuz") on Hittorfstraße and was completed and opened in 1965/66; the official inauguration took place on November 18, 1966.
The new Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry included an isotope laboratory and the rooms belonging to the Extraordinariate for Pharmaceutical Technology. Theodor Eckert (from Frankfurt) moved into these rooms in 1966 as successor to Gerwalt Zinner (1963 from Marburg), who had followed a call to Braunschweig in 1965. In 1968 the chair became a full professorship; in 1971 the technology was given institute status while retaining the premises. After its move in 1984/85, the institute is located at Corrensstr. 1 and has been headed by Rüdiger Gröning (from Berlin) since 1989.

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