A F08TOOL APOTHEOSIS. 



and sisters ; each mai., however, had a spiritual sis- 

 ter, with whom he lived in a domestic relation. 

 The third sect of A. was founded, about 1260, by 

 Gerhard Sagarelli. They went barefooted, begging, 

 preaching, and singing throughout Italy, Switzerland, 

 and France ; announced the coming of the kingdom 

 of heaven, and of purer times; had females in their 

 retinue, as the apostles had their female companions, 

 and were suspected of unlawful intimacy with these 

 sisters. This society never received the papal confir- 

 mation ; on the contrary, it was abolished, A. D. 

 1286, by Honorius IV. Though they were perse- 

 cuted by the inquisition, they continued in existence, 

 perpetually wandering about ; and, when Sagarelli 

 was burnt as a heretic, A. D. 1300, another chief 

 . apostle appeared, Dolcino, a learned man of Milan, 

 who encouraged the sect, now increased to 1400 

 men, with his prophetic promises. To defend them- 

 selves against persecution, they were compelled, 

 about the year 1304, to station themselves in fortified 

 places, whence they might resist attacks. In the 

 plundering habits which they were forced to adopt, 

 they wholly lost the original design of their institu- 

 tion, and, after having devastated a large tract of 

 country belonging to Milan, they were subdued, A. 

 D. 1,307, by the troops of bishop Raynerius, in their 

 fortress Zebello, in Vercelli, and almost all destroyed. 

 Dolcino was burnt. The survivors afterwards ap- 

 peared in Lombardy, and in the south of France, as 

 late as A. D. 1368. Their heresy consisted in revil- 

 ing the pope and the clergy. 



APOSTOOL; a Mennonite minister at Amsterdam, 

 who established, in 1664, a sect called Apostoolians, 

 a branch of the Mennonites. 



APOSTROPHE; a figure of speech which received 

 this name from the ancients, because the orator, in 

 using it, turned from the judge to the accuser, or the 

 accused, and spoke to him. In a more limited sense, 

 we understand by it, an address to one absent as if he 

 were present, or to things without life and sense, as 

 if they had life and sense. The apostrophe, accord- 

 ing to its nature, is spoken in an elevated tone. The 

 same term is also used to signify the contraction of a 

 word by the use of a comma. 



APOTHBCABY is one who practises the art of phar- 

 macy, or preparing and vending medicines for the 

 use of the sick. Previously to the reign of James 

 I., the Apothecaries were confounded with the drug- 

 gists and grocers, and retailed syrups, Venice treacle, 

 and wine ; but upon the joint solicitation of his phy- 

 sicians, Dr Mayerne and Dr Aikin,that monarch was 

 pleased to grant them a separate charter, whereby 

 they were withdrawn from their spicy associates, in 

 order to enable them to make up the Physicians' pre- 

 scriptions with greater nicety and accuracy and 

 during the reign of George I., they were exempted 

 from serving on juries, or in parish offices. They are 

 obliged to prepare all their medicines according to 

 the rules laid down from time to time in the Phar- 

 macopoeia of the College of Physicians, and are liable 

 to the domiciliary visits of the four censors of that 

 body, who can enter their shops, examine all their 

 drugs, and burn, destroy, and throw into the kennel 

 all such articles as are not properly prepared or in 

 good preservation. The company of apothecaries 

 of London, are governed by a warden and masters, 

 and have a large laboratory and hall in Black- 

 friars, where they retail drugs to the public, and 

 from which all the medicines required for the hospi- 

 tals of the British navy are sent Legally speaking, 

 apothecaries have no right, by the laws of England, 

 to visit the sick in their own houses, or prescribe for 

 them ; for they are not allowed to make any charge for 

 medical attendance or visits ; and in making out their 

 bills, they can onlv charge for their potions, draughts, 



powders, electuaries, pills, boluses, &c. To account 

 for this absurdity, which is the source of a great deaJ 

 of folly, it should be known, that before the last 

 great plague in London, the sick were always attend- 

 ed by physicians only, who wrote prescriptions, which 

 were sent to the apothecary or grocer's shop, and 

 there prepared, and the medicine sent back to the 

 sick persons' houses. But during that dreadful visi- 

 tation, a great majority of the regular physicians 

 having died, and many of the survivors fled into the 

 country, the friends of the sick were forced to implore 

 the aid of the apothecaries, who thus left their coun- 

 ters and shops and came, for the first time, to the 

 bedsides of the sick. Having become the attendants 

 of the infirm, on the return of order, the physicians 

 abandoned the poorer classes to their cara, and obtain- 

 ed for them a royal charter ; and since that period, 

 the increasing demands of a large and industrious 

 population have fostered the increase of apothecaries, 

 who are now generally called in by the rich on all 

 slight occasions, and have, conjointly with the sur- 

 geons, rendered their former patrons, the physicians, 

 dependent on their bounty ; for it is a general 

 maxim with an apothecary, never to permit a phy- 

 sician to be called in, as long as his patient will swal- 

 low his medicines wholesale, without disputing their 

 necessity, or unless his victim is absolutely in the 

 agonies of death, and then a physician is called, 

 merely for decency's sake, and to sign the death- 

 warrant. It is agreed on all hands, that the state of 

 the medical profession in England requires a thorough 

 investigation and legal reform ; but no person seems 

 inclined to meddle with such a nest of hornets, and 

 in the meantime, the race are permitted to prey on 

 the livers of the Promethean public as it best pleases 

 them so to do. 



APOTHEOSIS (deification) ; a solemnity among the 

 ancients, by which a man was raised to the rank of 

 the gods. The custom of placing mortals, who had 

 rendered their countrymen important services, among 

 the gods, was very ancient among the Greeks, who 

 generally followed, in so doing, the advice of an 

 oracle. On their coins, most of the founders of cities 

 and colonies are immortalized as gods ; and, in sub- 

 sequent times, living princes assumed this title. The 

 Romans, for several centuries, deified none but Romu- 

 lus, and first imitated the Greeks, in the fashion of 

 Frequent apotheosis, after the time of Augustus Caesar. 

 From this period, apotheosis was regulated by the 

 decrees of the senate, and accompanied with great 

 solemnities. There are still many monuments extant 

 exhibiting the Roman apotheosis. It became, at last, 

 so common, as to be an object of contempt. Ves- 

 pasian, in an attack of sickness, said, by way of joke, 

 " I am a god, or, at least, not far from it." Accord- 

 ing to Eusebius, Tertullian, and Chrysostom, Tiberius 

 proposed to the senate the apotheosis of Jesus Christ, 

 which, however, was refused by this body. Juvenal, 

 satirizing the frequent practice of A., introduces poor 

 Atlas, complaining that he could not any longer 

 jear the immense and daily increasing mass of gods. 

 That virtuous persons, after their death, were raised 

 to the rank of demigods, was a doctrine of Pythago- 

 ras, who probably derived this idea from the East. 

 It corresponds with the notions of many Christians, 

 who believe that virtuous men become angels after 

 their death. The period of the Roman emperors, so rich 

 in crime and folly, offers the most infamous instances 

 of apotheosis. After Cassar, the greater part of the 

 Roman emperors were deified. The same hand which 

 had murdered a predecessor often placed him among 

 the gods. The savage Nero deified the beautiful 

 Poppaea, his wife, after liaving killed her by a kick 

 svhen she was pregnant ; and Caracalla, having mur- 

 dered hi* brother, Geta, with his own hands, in his 

 2n E2 



