Daybook of the court apothecary in the time of William and Mary, 1691.

THIS BOOK iS the property of the Reading Medical Chirurgical Society and is held in their library. I have to thank the Society's Librarian, Dr. K. Bryn Thomas, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., F.F.A., for allowing me access to the book and for his ready permission to allow its contents to be published. The book, of some 500 long pages, 40 x 15 cm., is apparently in its original leather binding and is lettered in gold on a dark brown leather panel on the spine: DAY BOOK/OF THE COURT/APOTHECARY/TIME OF/WILLIAM & MARY/ DATE 1691. The period covered by the entries is from April 1691 to 25 May 1693, just over two years. There are at least sixprescriptions on each page thoughsome pages have as many as ten. The prescriptions are no doubt copied from the "bills" of various medical men, some of them court physicians of the period. The entries are in various hands, occasionally in the hand of an unmistakably ageing person. Throughout the Latin is good and the entries are readable, except where a few pages have been torn. Besides prescriptions there are entries of supplies to a few physicians and surgeons, in addition to supplies ordered by customers for personal or household use.