_Druggist._ Smoking not allowed here, sir.
_Customer._ Why! I just bought this cigar from you.
_Druggist._ Well, we also sell emetics and cathartics. That does not
license customers to sit down and enjoy them on the premises.
In the thirteenth year of the reign of James I. of England (and James VI.
of Scotland) the apothecaries and grocers were disunited. The charter,
however, placed the former under the control of the College of Physicians,
who were endowed with the arbitrary powers of inspecting their shops and
wares, and inflicting punishments for alleged neglects, deficiencies, and
malpractices.
The physicians knew so little, that the apothecaries soon were enabled to
cope with them; "and before a generation had passed away the apothecaries
had gained so much, socially and pecuniarily, that the more prosperous of
them could afford to laugh in the face of the faculty, and by the
commencement of the next century they were fawned upon by the younger
physicians, and were in a position to quarrel with the old, which they
soon improved."
As it was a common occurrence for patients to apply at the apothecary's
for a physician, the former either recommended the applicant to one who
favored him, _or else prescribed for the patient himself_. The
promulgation of this fact was the declaration of war with the old
physicians, who heretofore had done their best to keep down the
apothecaries. The former threatened punishment, as provided by law; the
latter retaliated, by refusing to call them in to consult on difficult
cases. "Starving graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, with the certificate
of the college in their pockets, were imbittered by having to trudge along
on foot and see the mean 'medicine mixers,' who had scarce scholarship
enough to construe a prescription, dashing by in their carriages."
The war progressed,--Physician _vs._ Apothecary,--and the rabble joined.
Education sided with the physicians, interest sided with the
apothecaries.
"So modern 'pothecaries taught the art,
By doctors' bills, to play the doctors' part;
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools."
To circumvent the apothecaries, a dispensary was established in the
College of Physicians, where prescriptions were dispensed at cost. While
this proceeding served to lessen the apothecary's income for a time, it
could not greatly benefit the prescribing physician. The former might
parallel his case with Iago, and say of the physician, he
"Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed."
Physicians were divided into two classes,--Dispensarians and
Anti-dispensarians. Charges of ignorance, extortion, and of double-dealing
were preferred on both sides. The dispensary doctors charged their
opponents with playing into the hands of the apothecaries by prescribing
enormous doses, often changing their prescriptions uselessly to increase
the druggists' revenues and _their own percentage_! On the other hand, the
dispensarians were accused of charging a double profit on prescriptions
whenever the ignorance of the patient, respecting the value of drugs,
would admit of the extortion.
Had the physicians been united, the apothecaries would have had to
succumb; but a divided house must fall, and the apothecaries won the day.
A London apothecary, having been prosecuted by the college for prescribing
for a patient without a regular physician's advice, carried the case up to
the House of Lords, where he obtained a verdict in his favor; and another
apothecary, Mr. Goodwin, whose goods had been seized by some dispensary
doctors, having obtained a large sum for damages, which being considered
test cases, the doctors from this time (about 1725) discontinued the
exercise of their authority over the apothecaries.
Thus emancipated from the supervision of the physicians, the apothecaries
began to feel their own importance, and most of them prescribed boldly for
patients, without consulting a doctor. The ignorance of many of them was
only equalled by their impudence. It is not unusual, at the present day,
for not only apothecaries, but their most ignorant clerks, to prescribe
for persons, strangers perhaps, who call to inquire for a physician; and
cases, too, where the utmost skill and experience are required.
The following amusing anecdote is sufficiently in accordance with facts
within our own knowledge to be true, notwithstanding its _seeming_
improbability:--