194 On the Chemical Establishments 



dered the wise and judicious intentions of this charter nugatory, 

 With respect to all such apothecaries who were not members of the 

 society. Early and repeated applications were therefore made to 

 parliament, for their sanction to confirm and establish the powers 

 contained in it, but for various causes such sanction could not then 

 be obtained ; so that the evils, which it was chiefly intended to ob- 

 viate in the preparation of medicines, continued to an equal and 

 probably greater extent. 



From the records of the society, it appears, that its members 

 soon discovered a laudable anxiety to relieve themselves from the 

 necessity of depending for a supply of medicines on the artifices, 

 and the spurious compositions of the druggists and chemists of 

 that time, and accordingly, in the year 1623, they formed a plan 

 for supporting a dispensary of their own, for compounding the 

 more elaborate confections, (which containing a great number of 

 ingredients were more liable to adulteration) by a public dispen- 

 sation under the inspection and management of a committee of 

 themselves. The utility of this plan, being probably confined to 

 very few articles, must have been of a very limited extent, and it 

 was not until nearly half a century after, that the design of a pub- 

 lic laboratory for the preparation of chemical medicines was set on 

 foot. It originated from the difficulty and great expense which 

 must have been incurred, by the apothecary, in making his own 

 chemicals, and from the impracticability of his procuring them else- 

 where in a pure and genuine form. 



In the year 1671, a chemical laboratory was first formed at 

 Apothecaries' Hall, by subscription among the members of the so- 

 ciety. When compared with the present very extensive establish- 

 ment, it must certainly have been upon a small scale, but, no 

 doubt, amply sufficient to answer the purpose for which it was then 

 intended, which was to furnish the individual subscribers, and 

 them only, with such chemical preparations as they might have 

 occasion for in their medical practice as apothecaries. 



How long the sale of chemicals was confined to subscribers 

 alone cannot now be known, but the increasing reputation of this 

 laboratory must have soon caused applications for purchasing 



