Antun Vrgoč

Antun Vrgoč, , Croatian pharmacist (Gunja, August 30th, 1881 – Zagreb, August 8th, 1949).
Doctor of Science. Professor of Pharmacognosy and the first dean (1924-45) at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Zagreb. He studied chemistry at the University of humanities, and besides chemistry, he attended botany, zoology, mineralogy, philosophy and pharmacognosy lectures. After graduating in 1904, he continued his studies of pharmacognosy and physiological botany in Graz and in Bern where he studied Pharmacochemistry and Pharmacobotany at the Institute of Pharmacognosy. In 1907 he became an assistant at the Institute for Pharmacognosy in Zagreb, and in 1910 he received his doctorate.

At a time when he was the head of the Institute, the pharmacognostic collection was enriched with extremely valuable and rare specimens of drugs from overseas and today it contains more than 3,000 drugs. In addition to his teaching work, he made an important contribution to the development of science in the field of pharmacobotany, pharmaceutical chemistry and in the history of the preparation and application of herbs in the treatment of diseases.

He was also interested in the history of pharmacy, especially in the history of pharmacy of the Croatian Military Krajina. He is the author of the first modern Croatian textbook on pharmacognosy Uputa u farmakognoziju (1931) and the Farmakografija Banovine Hrvatske te ujedno Bosne i Hercegovine (1940). As a historian of pharmacy, he mostly interested in topics of pharmacist and pharmacy services. He participated in the 1st edition of the Jugoslavenska farmakopeja.