a new medical body the right of granting licenses to such persons as they should find, by examination, were competent to practise.

It was their primary intention to apply to Parliament for the attainment of these objects through the medium or, at least, with the concurrence of the Colleges of Physicians" and " Surgeons," and the "Society of Apothecaries." Each corporate body

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declined at the first to interfere; but, a bill having been framed by the association, an opposition proceeding from all quarters, as well druggists as physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, caused many alterations, erasures, and interpolations to be effected, to the satisfaction of neither party: yet, with the hope of obtaining an amended Act in the ensuing session, and the fear that by further procrastination they might be defeated altogether, a bill arranged by the "Society of Apothecaries," in conjunction with the "College of Physicans," was assented to by the "Associated Apothecaries," and hurried through parliament in the year 1815, as "An Act for better regulating the practice of Apothecaries throughout England and Wales."

By this Act, the distinction in the office of physician and apothecary, which had been gradually lost sight of, in the manner described, since 1618, was completely obliterated, and the anomaly created of a corporate body of physicians at Charing Cross affirming that the practice of medicine should have

no connection with the practice of pharmacy, whilst the "Society of Apothecaries at Blackfriars ex

amined and granted licenses to one and the same individual to fill the office of both; and this with the assent of the College of Physicians! Such was the completion of the third great invasion of the physician's office which we have attempted to portray.

Before, however, proceeding to set forth some of the injurious effects of those several corruptions, it will be well to inquire, What is the testimony of other civilised nations, at the present day, regarding the distinction affirmed in our second proposition? Has the corruption, and thereby the division alluded to, been general throughout these nations-as were those of the Priest and Barber-or is it peculiar to our own native land ?

The laws of Prussia and other German states are, perhaps, more comprehensive and more stringent than any, regarding the liberal education, but limited duties, of the apothecary. The members of this profession are here not only well educated, but restricted to their proper functions of preparing, compounding, and dispensing medicines according to the prescriptions of the authorised practitioners.

In each city or district a limited number is licensed in proportion to the population; and the strictest surveillance is exercised over them for the above purposes.

In Hamburgh, for instance, the apothecary is

educated, examined, and granted a diploma as assistant, preliminary to another and final examination as full apothecary. For this latter, it is required that he should have passed four years as apprentice, three years as assistant, and attended one year's lectures at a university. After being thus carefully qualified for his office, he is at liberty to purchase a business, should a vacancy take place through death, or retirement, in any licensed establishment; or he may petition to open a new shop in a fresh locality, when from increase of population, or distance in the country, it may appear to be required; but the Board of Health is very slow in granting new licenses. There is prepared also every year a price list of drugs, and the apothecary is liable to a fine if he charges more or less than the prescribed amount. His shop is periodically visited—once a year at least -all faulty drugs are destroyed; and if this is often found to be necessary at the same shop, the license is withdrawn.

Similar regulations not only exist throughout Prussia, Austria, and the minor German States, but in Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Mexico, and even Moldavia and Wallachia.*

Professor Holst, in framing a new medical bill for Norway, in 1844, thus speaks :-"In Norway, as in other continental states, the apothecary is a well

*See Pharmaceutical Journal' for a valuable series of papers on this subject, from which these facts are principally taken.

educated individual, who must obtain a regular license, after undergoing a strict course of instruction in chemistry, pharmacy, and the collateral sciences. Here, as in all countries excepting in England, the trade of the apothecary is strictly separated from the profession of physic."

In Mexico, apothecaries are not only subjected to a careful education, rigid examination, a periodical visitation of their shops, an obligation to reject all prescriptions not signed by a legal practitioner, to abstain from all medical or surgical practice, and never to quit their shops without leaving an approved and duly qualified substitute; but so jealously is the effect of this combination guarded against, that no apothecary is permitted to open a shop, or take one in a place where his father or father-in-law, son or sonin-law, is established in medical or surgical practice.*

In other states, where no legal restrictions are placed as regards the numbers, the education and examination, as well as the limited duties of apothecary and physician respectively, are no less carefully provided for and defined; so that a supply is called forth, ample for, but only commensurate with, their legitimate functions in relation to the public and to each other; such is the case in France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, United States, &c., &c.

Belgium offers a striking instance of the evil effect of relaxing these salutary regulations even to a slight

*Pharmaceutical Journal,' vol. iv, p. 517.

extent. The same distinct line had been here observed and enforced by law since 1641; but, in the year 1818, exceptions were made, in order that physicians might provide medicines for their patients in secret cases, and in small villages* where was no pharmacien. This practice has so much increased from interested motives, where there was no necessity for it, that petitions have again and again been made to repeal these laws, and pharmacy is said to be in a retrograde condition.

The United States of America hold a far higher position, as regards this distinction, than ourselves; and though something of the hybrid character pertains to a few of her physicians-doubtless inherited from their parent stock-yet the business of an apothecary, or chemist and druggist as he is generally styled, is limited to the preparation and sale of medicines, for which he is fully qualified. He corresponds to the "pharmacien " of France, as he neither visits the sick nor prescribes at the counter, and therefore it is their number of apothecaries is only proportionate to their limited duties.

Having traced the third great corruption of medicine in this kingdom to the invasion of the apothecary in England and Wales, and contrasted it with the testimony of Foreign States, it remains only to

* This exception is also made in some other states, but the increase of the practice is prevented by a strict surveillance and a limited price of drugs.