illustrated the position by introducing the
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.
This was written in 1709.
The apothecaries strengthened their position as medical practitioners in the public esteem by remaining at their posts during the Great Plague in London in 1665 when most of the physicians fled from the stricken city. Between this date and the end of the seventeenth century the quarrel between the two sections of the profession constantly grew in bitterness. Some of the allegations of extortion made against the apothecaries are almost incredible. In Dr. Goodall's "Historical Account of the Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians against Empiricks and Unlicensed Practisers" (1684), it is reported that George Buller who gave the college some trouble in 1633 had charged 30s. each for 25 pills; £37 10s. for the boxful. Three were given to a Mrs. Style for a sore leg, and she died the same night. A Dr. Tenant prosecuted by the college in James I's reign "was so impudent and unconscionable in the rating of his medicines that he charged £6 for one pill and the same for an apozeme."
Dr. R. Pitt, F.R.S., in "Crafts and Frauds of Physic Exposed," 1703 (a book written expressly to defend the establishment of dispensaries by the Physicians), states that apothecaries had been known to make £150 out of a single case, and that in a recent instance (which had apparently come before the law courts) the apothecary had made £320. In every bill of £100 Dr. Pitt says the charges were £90 more than the shop prices for the medicine.
