The place of the apothecary in the evolution of medical practice

"WE have to deal here with a sort of men not of Academical, but Mechanick education; who being either actually engaged in the late Rebellion, or bred up in some mean and contemptible trades were never taught the duty they owe to God or their Sovereign, to their Native Country or the Laws therof" thus wrote Charles Goodall, the energetic defender of the rights of the London College of Physicians, in 1684. Goodall, who became president of the College, had, in 1665, received at Cambridge a licence merely to practise surgery and did not gain incorporation until five years later on the strength of a Leiden MD obtained after a mere thirteen days at that university.6 In his character assassination of the apothecaries, he was following the example of another fellow of the College, a man of greater stature, Christopher Merrett FRS, who, fourteen years earlier, wrote in his A short view of the frauds and abuses committed by Apothecaries. . ., "But before I descend to particulars I shall first lay down this Proposition.... That they may be the Veriest Knaves in England." These were but two of the many blasts in the pamphlet war between the physicians of the College and the apothecaries of the London Society that raged for the forty years between 1665 and 1705. On the whole, one gains the impression that the opponents were fairly evenly matched, with the weight coming down rather more on the physicians' side. It is a different story from the first phase of the battle immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War, when the position of the Company of Apothecaries was indeed parlous. The foundation of the College of Physicians dates from 23 September 1518, when Henry VIII granted letters patent under the Great Seal for the incorporation of "the College of Commonalty of the Faculty of Medicine of London". No one was to practise physic within London and for seven miles around unless admitted by the president and College by letters sealed with their common seal, and offenders were to be punished by fines and imprisonment. There was no clause safeguarding the rights of the English universities to be licensing bodies for the practice of physic throughout the kingdom. This was to lead to considerable controversy. Nor was the Act of 1511 repealed. This stated that within London and seven miles around no person was to practise as physician or surgeon unless he were examined and approved by the bishop of London or the dean of St Paul's, who were to be assisted in the case of physicians by four doctors of physic, and in the case of surgeons by experts in surgery. In the rest of the country, aspiring surgeons and physicians were to be examined by the bishop of the diocese or the bishop's vicar-general, who were also to seek assistance from such experts as they thought necessary. Clark is of the opinion that the ecclesiastical authorities must have regarded their powers as having been revoked in London in respect of physicians, as there was little