The deadly drugs in double doses fly;
And pestles peal a martial symphony.

In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-
four the number of apothecaries had
increased in England from about a hundred to
about a thousand; they had become an
influential body, and their claim to prescribe
for the less wealthy section of the public,
that could not afford to pay, first the
physicians for advice, then the apothecary for his
medicine, excited a discussion that had
reached its hottest point. Then it was that
some of the physicians, out of motives half-
benevolent half-controversial, united in the
establishment of dispensaries, at which they
would give their own advice to the poor,
cheaply or gratuitously, and cause medicine
to be sold nearly at prime cost. One of the
dispensaries was in a room of the then
College of Physicians (now a brazier's
premises), in Warwick Lane; another was
in St. Martin's Lane at Westminster; a
third in St. Peter's Alley, Cornhill. They
came into operation in the month of
February, sixteen hundred and ninety-seven,
and were soon resorted to by rich and poor,
as druggists' shops at which the apothecaries
were competed with and underbidden by the
faculty. A war of tongues and pamphlets
was, of course, excited by this measure, of
which the only durable record — and that a
record now almost lost out of sight—is the
poem that has been once or twice quoted in
this paper, The Dispensary; a Poem in Six
Cantos, by Dr. Garth. Of course the
physicians very soon abandoned the trade part
of the new system they had called into
existence.

As a final effort, the physicians then tested
in a court of law the right of the apothecaries
to advise as well as compound. John Seal, a
butcher, had been attended by Mr. William
Rose, an apothecary, and there was obtained
from him this evidence: "May the 15th,
1704. These are to certify that I, John
Seal, being sick and applying myself to this
Mr. Rose the apothecary for his directions
and medicines, in order for my cure, had his
advice and medicines from him a year
together; but was so far from being the
better for them, that I was in a worse condition
than when he undertook me; and after
a very expensive bill of near fifty pounds,
was forced to apply myself to the dispensary
at the College of Physicians, where I
received my cure in about six weeks' time, for
under forty shillings charge in medicines.
Witness my hand."

Upon this case issue was raised, and after
a special verdict, followed by three
arguments in the Court of Queen's Bench, it was
decided that Rose had practised physic,
and in so doing had contravened the law.
Against this decision the Society of
Apothecaries appealed to the House of Lords, and
by that authority the judgment given in the
Queen's Bench was reversed. Then it was
finally decided that the duty of the apothecary
consisted not only in prescribing and
dispensing, but also in directing and ordering
the remedies employed in the treatment of
disease. The position of the apothecary thus
became what it had been at the first, and so
remained; but obviously what was assured
was not sufficient for the due protection of
the public.

For a long time nothing was done. The
Society of Apothecaries— which has never
been a wealthy guild — established a liberal
organisation among its members. It paid
great heed to the botanic garden at Chelsea,
which it had begun to lease from Lord
Cheyne, in sixteen hundred and seventy-
three, when the dispute with the physicians
was rapidly approaching its climax, and
which, not many years after the settlement
of the dispute, in seventeen hundred and
twenty-two, was made over to them in
perpetuity for a five-pound rental by Sir Hans
Sloane who had bought the manor, on
condition that it was to be maintained as a
physic garden at the charge of the apothecaries,
" for the manifestation of the power,
wisdom, and glory of God in the works of
the creation, and that their apprentices and
others may better distinguish good and
useful plants." The charge of the garden has
accordingly been to this day maintained,
without grudging, by direct annual
payment from all members of the Society of
Apothecaries.

There had arisen also, in connection with.
Apothecaries' Hall — by accident — a trade. In
sixteen hundred and twenty-three, some
members joined to form a dispensary, under
inspection, for the sake of obtaining — for
their own use only — pure and honest drugs.
Half a century later, a subscription among
members of the hall added a laboratory for
the supply of chemicals used by themselves
in their own practices. The credit of their
preparations caused others to apply to these
gentlemen for leave to purchase of them;
and this leave, at first refused, was ultimately
conceded, a few years before the date of the
establishment of the Dispensary at the
Physicians' College. A drug-trade was thus
commenced, not by the Society of Apothecaries,
but by some of its members at its hall,
and their subscriptions and profits were their
own private concern, paid to and taken from
what they termed " general stock." In the
early part of the reign of Queen Anne, much
difficulty having been found in the procuring
of pure drugs for the British navy, Prince
George of Denmark, Lord High Admiral,
persuaded the society to undertake the
supply. They then opened a separate
commercial establishment, under the title of the
Navy Stock, in which it was optional with
any member to take shares. After a time
these two stocks were joined as a common
interest, and became what is now known as