broadly this contribution is concerned with drug regulation in Germany during 1871–1914, in particular with the interaction of the government and the chemical industry in this area. From its beginning the German chemical industry was not a uniformly organized industrial branch. Since the 1850s and 1860s, it was possible to differentiate between the heavy chemicals (primary) industry and the preparations (processing) industry. Whereas the interest and problems of the first lay in the production of soda, sulphuric acid, potash, and fertilizers (in conjunction with the rising coal and steel industries), the second pursued its own interests and as such was the first to come into contact with governmental health institutions. This distinct attitude of the preparations industry is further underlined by the founding of a body, in 1877, called the Verein zur Wahrung der Interessen der chemischen Industrie (Association for Safeguarding the Interests of the Chemical Industry).

Analysing the health policy of the Empire, our main interest will be the preparations industry. Its products fall into two large groups, coal tar chemicals and fine chemicals – both are closely connected with the pharmacy. The pharmacists, in Germany traditionally having the privilege of preparing medicines, developed also an interest in fine chemicals. The mid-nineteenth-century industrialization brought forth such firms emerging from pharmacists' shops as Schering, Riedel, and Merck. Since the 1880s the dye manufacturers began to develop medicines from waste products or by-products.