The role of Ottoman apothecaries and their products changed dramatically in the course of the 19th century due to changes in science and technology, newly available products at an ever-accelerating pace in a new global market for pharmaceuticals and their raw ingredients, professionalization including the founding of the Ottoman Imperial School of Medicine and its affiliated institutions, and a changing legal climate of regulation of trade and of legal and illegal drugs in particular within the empire. This paper traces some of these changes through three sources: the serial press, the Prime Ministry Archives in Istanbul, and holdings in American archives related to pharmaceutical training, production, and export. Through an analysis of feature articles and advertisements, I will present the changing discourse around the meanings of esrar or drugs both in pharmacology and in home remedies, as the household became a site for strengthening and maintaining the health of the Ottoman population. I will trace the professionalization of pharmacology through the serial press, through regulations of apothecary shops in the Prime Ministry Archives, and through correspondence of John Uri Lloyd, an American pharmacist, novelist, and businessman, with Ahmad Ramsey and Sherif Pasha of Izmir between 1906 and 1911, leading up to and following a visit by Lloyd to the Ottoman Empire for business and pleasure in 1906. Running throughout the paper is an analysis of professionalization of pharmacology and pharmaceutical practices in France from the 17th century forwards, drawing on another set of papers in the Lloyd Library’s holdings. As the paper moves forward in time, I will bring these two narratives together in a discussion of Ottoman responses to internal needs and external pressures, as reformers, pharmacists, merchants, and consumers took up opportunities of intellectual and economic exchange to alter understandings and practices of drugs in the Ottoman Empire.