so far as it relates to the Profession of the Apothecary," in 1795, mentions, on the authority of Regner, that J. de Falcand de Luca publicly vended medicines in London in 1357, while Freind ("History of Medicine," 1725) states that Pierre de Montpellier was appointed Apothecary to Edward III in 1360.
It is clear, therefore, that the apothecary was a familiar professional personage in England five hundred years ago. Conclusive evidence of his practice is given by Chaucer, who, in the Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales" (written in the last quarter of the fourteenth century), describing a "Doctour of Phisike" says—
Ful reddy hadde he his apothecaries
To send him dragges and his lettuaries
For eche of hem made other for to Winne.
The satirical suggestion of the mutual obligations of physicians and apothecaries has been familiar for all these centuries.
It seems certain that in Henry VIII's reign the apothecaries were doing a considerable amount of medical practice, besides selling drugs. The Act of 1511 incorporating the College of Physicians and giving them the exclusive right to practise physic in London and for seven miles round, was largely used, if not intended, against apothecaries. In 1542, however, an Act was passed which rather modified the severe restrictions of the original statute, and under the new law apothecaries became more aggressive. In Mary's reign the Physicians again got the legislative advantage, and there is a record in the archives of the College of Physicians (preserved by Dr. Goodall, who wrote "A History of the Proceedings of the College against Empiricks," in 1684) stating that in Queen Elizabeth's
