The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy

The earliest record of the apothecary in England seems to be of one Richard Fitznigel, who acted in that capacity to Henry II. This individual subsequently rose in degree at Court, and exchanging the pestle for the crozier, eventually became Bishop of London. In 1345 we hear of one Coursus de Gangland receiving for his services as apothecary to Edward III., and for taking care of and attending his Majesty during his illness in Scotland, a pension of sixpence a day.

Those who practised medicine, surgery, and pharmacy were called physicians, while their assistants were known as apothecaries. Many of the latter, as they began to learn the secrets and habits of their employers, began business on their own account, also dealing in drugs and other commodities, until they became a powerful body.

In the latter part of the century a distinct separation took place, and we find that in 1600 there were physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, barber surgeons, druggists or distillers and sellers of waters and oils, and preparers of chemical medicines. It was not until the year 1617 that the Apothecaries’ Society had a separate existence, when it was enacted that no grocer should keep an apothecary’s shop, and that no surgeon should sell medicines.

In 1623 the Society of Apothecaries established a dispensary, for the purpose of making some of the most important medicines then used in a uniform manner, and in May, 1618, the first Pharmacopœia was published by the College of Physicians. We are told that it was so imperfect that they brought out an improved edition in December of the same year. This was published in Latin, and it was through making and publishing his translation of this work that Nicholas Culpepper (who was a man of common-sense in his time) got into disgrace with the College of Physicians, who in consequence refused him a licence to practise.

The history of the Society of Apothecaries of London is an interesting one. It is a mystery or guild which has retained its original function of a trading corporation. It arose as an offshoot of the Grocers’ Company, which descended from the pepperers and the spicers, who amalgamated in 1345 under the name of the Fraternity of St. Anthony. The Grocers’ Company is one of the most powerful and wealthy of the twelve great Livery Companies of London which have survived from mediæval times.

King James I. appears to have interested himself in the separation of the two bodies about the year 1614, and in spite of vigorous opposition by the grocers, a charter was granted on 6th December, 1617, making the apothecaries a distinct mystery, under the title of the Society of Apothecaries. This charter restrained the grocers and all other persons from keeping an apothecary’s shop in or near London, and it gave the Society a right which had been inherent in the Grocers’ Company, of paying domiciliary visits to the apothecaries’ shops to search for, to seize, and destroy bad drugs and medicines, a power at first limited to London and seven miles round, but afterwards extended throughout England and Wales. This was discontinued shortly after 1833.

The first hall or council-house of the society consisted of a house and grounds known as Cobham House, in Water Lane, Blackfriars, immediately behind what is now the Ludgate Hill Station. It was purchased in 1633, mainly through the instrumentality of Gideon Delaune, chief apothecary to Anne of Denmark, who was one of the retinue sent to attend her from Norway when she became the wife of James I. This hall was destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666, and its site lay vacant for ten years before it was rebuilt. The second hall was enlarged and improved in 1786, and it still stands.

In the reign of Queen Anne, Prince George of Denmark, who was then Lord High Admiral, applied to the society to know if they would undertake to supply the navy with drugs, as it was very badly served at that time. This the society agreed to do, and for so doing was drawn into a long series of quarrels with the College of Physicians, whose members thought it was the duty of an apothecary “to remember his office is only to be the physician’s cooke”.

A knowledge of herbs and simples was soon found necessary to these early compounders of medicine, and as a means of instruction, botanical excursions or herborisings, as they were called in those days, soon formed a prominent feature of the society. This led eventually to the decision to rent a physic garden, for which purpose the gardens available near the hall were unsuitable, and in 1673 the Botanic Garden at Chelsea was leased to the apothecaries for a term of sixty-one years, by Charles Cheyne, Esq., lord of the manor.

The custom of examination grew up within the society very gradually, the first examinations being found necessary to ascertain whether the apprentices could decipher the very illegible handwriting in which the physicians wrote their prescriptions or bills, an accomplishment for which apparently they have been ever famous.

Then came the division of the apothecaries from the druggists, the former in the process of time becoming a subordinate class of practitioners who attended an individual afflicted with some internal disease not requiring external or manual aid, and who prescribed for the cure of such complaint and supplied the medicine; while the latter were supposed to confine themselves to the dealing in and preparation of drugs for the apothecary.

The apothecary was paid for the medicine which he supplied, which was not by any means in small quantities, and so was supposed not to encroach ostensibly upon the province of the physician, who received his remuneration for advice only, and did not provide medicine.

In 1812 a tax was put upon glass which increased the price of bottles greatly, much to the chagrin of the apothecaries, who were paid according to the number of draughts and potions which they could induce their patients to swallow. It was customary to place each dose of medicine in a separate bottle, and charge it at the rate of one or two shillings a dose, so the apothecary naturally felt aggrieved at the glass tax, which, however, was soon afterwards repealed.