practising in London. At the same time it was enacted that no grocer should keep an apothecary’s shop, and that no surgeon should sell medicines, and that the physicians should have the power to search the shops of the apothecaries within 7 m. of London under a penalty of £100 in case of a refusal to permit it. Soon after the apothecaries were formed into a separate company they took into consideration means to prevent the frauds and adulterations practised by the grocers and druggists, and, to remedy the evil, established a manufactory of their own in 1626 so that they might make preparations for their own members. The frauds and adulterations were probably due in part to the apothecaries, for Dr Merrit, a collegiate physician of London, stated that “such chymists which sell preparations honestly made complain that few apothecaries will go to the price of them.” The medicinal preparations which required the aid of a furnace, such as mineral earths, were undertaken by the chymists, who probably derived their name from the Alchymists, who flourished from the 14th to the 16th centuries. When the word was discovered to be derived from an Arabic prefix and a Greek word the prefix was dropped. In the 19th century the word chymist became altered to chemist, although the original spelling is still continued to a small extent. The curious signs on the coloured carboys in chemists' windows, which were commonly to be seen until the middle of the 19th century, were signs used by the alchemists to indicate various chemical substances. In 1694 the apothecaries had increased from 114 to nearly 1000, and many of them, having acquired a knowledge of the uses of medicine, began to prescribe medicines for their customers and to assume the functions of the physician, who retorted in 1697 by establishing dispensaries, where medicines could be procured at their intrinsic value, or at cost price. The assistants employed at these dispensaries after a time appear to have gone into business on their own account, and in this way the dispensing chemists, as a class, appear to have originated.
In 1748 the Apothecaries’ Corporation obtained a charter empowering them to license apothecaries to sell medicines in London, or within 7 m., and intended to use it to restrain chemists and druggists from practising pharmacy, and to prohibit physicians and surgeons from selling the medicines they prescribed, but the apothecaries, by paying increased attention to medical and surgical practice, had not only alienated the physicians and surgeons, but materially strengthened the position of chemists and druggists as dispensers of prescriptions. When a further attempt was made in 1815 to bring a bill into parliament including provisions for prohibiting the practice of pharmacy by uneducated persons, and giving power to examine dispensing chemists, the latter became alarmed, and, finding that the provisions of the bill were entirely in the interests of the apothecaries, and directed against chemists and druggists, the latter took measures to oppose it in parliament, which were so far successful as to prevent apothecaries from interfering in any way with, or obtaining any control over, chemists and druggists. In 1841 another attempt was made by the apothecaries to control the trade of chemists and druggists on the ground that no adequate examination or education in pharmacy existed, and that such should be instituted, and be controlled by the apothecaries and physicians, but the latter disclaimed any desire to take an active part in the matter. The chemists and druggists, recognizing that no institution for the systematic education and examination of chemists and druggists existed in England, and that no proof could be given that each individual possessed the necessary qualifications, decided that this objection must be met, and that pharmacy must be placed upon a more scientific footing. They therefore resolved upon the foundation of a voluntary society, under the title of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, “for advancing the knowledge of chemistry and pharmacy, and promoting a uniform system of education for those who should practise the same, also for protecting the collective and individual interests and privileges of all its members, in the event of any hostile attack in parliament or elsewhere.” This society was instituted in 1841, the original founders being chemists and druggists in the metropolis and provincial towns. On the 18th of February 1843 a royal charter of incorporation was granted to the society, and a permanent status was thus acquired. Chemists in business before the granting of the charter were entitled to join the society as members, but those who wished to join it subsequently could do so only on condition of passing an examination for the purpose of testing their knowledge of pharmacy. A school of pharmacy was instituted, and a museum and library were started. The chemical laboratory in connexion with the school was, when first instituted, the only one in England for teaching purposes, and the museum is now reputed to be the best pharmaceutical one in the world, the library now containing about 13,000 volumes.
The examinations are three in number. The first is of a preliminary character, qualifying for registration as a student or apprentice; in lieu of this examination, certificates of matriculation at a university, and those of certain other educational bodies, are accepted. The second examination qualifies for registration as a chemist and druggist. This is known as the minor examination, and must be passed before anyone can legally dispense, compound and sell scheduled poisons. The subjects included are systematic botany, vegetable morphology and physiology, chemistry, physics, materia medica, pharmacy, dispensing, posology, the reading of prescriptions, and a knowledge of poisons and their antidotes. The Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908 (section 4) has given the society power to regulate the preliminary training, arrange a curriculum, and divide the qualifying examination into two parts, so that an approximation to the standard of pharmaceutical education on the Continent is likely to take place within a short period. Degrees in science and pharmacy are granted by the universities of Manchester and Glasgow, and other universities were in 1910 considering the question of granting degrees.
The third, or major examination, which qualifies for registration as a pharmaceutical chemist, is not, like the minor, a compulsory one, but ranks as an honours examination. The education for this examination has kept pace with the rapid advances of science, all the following sub]ects now receiving attention: the microscopical structure of plants and drugs, so as to detect adulterations and impurities in powdered drugs; organic and quantitative analysis, including those of food and drugs, water, soils, gas and urine; optics, so as to enable them to carry out the prescriptions of oculists; spectrum analysis; the use of the polariscope and refractometer; the method of applying Röntgen rays; the preparation of glandular secretions and antitoxins; and the chemistry of remedies for the fungoid diseases and insect pests of plants.
Those who have passed this examination are competent to perform analysis of all kinds, and generally obtain the preference for various appointments, such as head dispensers in government or other large hospitals, or as analysts. The society has also established a chemical research laboratory, in which much useful work has been done in connexion with the national pharmacopoeia under the direction of the Pharmacopoeia Committee of the Medical Council.
A pharmacy act, which was passed in 1852, established a distinction between registered and examined, and unregistered and unexamined chemists and druggists, creating a register of the former under the name of pharmaceutical chemists, so that the public might discriminate between the two classes. A subsequent pharmacy act, passed in 1868, added a register of chemists and druggists, and rendered it unlawful for any unregistered person to sell or keep open shop for selling the poisons mentioned in the schedule of this act. The administration of the act was entrusted to the pharmaceutical society, and the duty of prosecuting unauthorized practitioners has been performed by the society ever since, without any pecuniary assistance from the state, although the legal expenses involved in prosecution amount to a considerable portion of its income.
The Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908 extended the schedule of poisons instituted by the act of 1868, and it now includes arsenic, aconite, aconitine and their preparations; all poisonous vegetable alkaloids, and their salts and poisonous derivatives; atropine and its salts and their preparations; belladonna and all preparations or admixtures (except belladonna plasters) containing 0·1% or more of belladonna alkaloid; cantharides and its poisonous derivatives; any preparation or admixture of coca-leaves containing 0·1% or more of coca alkaloids; corrosive sublimate; cyanide of potassium and all poisonous cyanides and their preparations; tartar emetic, nux vomica, and all
