THE CHELSEA " PHYSIGKE GARDEN " 



For all the aid they received the apothecaries made ample returns, 

 and the claims the outside public made upon them are much in 

 evidence when we arrive at the nineteenth century. 



It was about 1815 that the Horticultural Society of London 

 begged the use of a part of the garden in order to promote the 

 cultivation of foreign vegetables used for food and condiments ; 

 and a plot near the river was assigned to them. 



In 1829 an effort was made to render the garden more useful 

 to the medical profession at large than it had hitherto been ; 

 it was thrown open for study more often, and not only to the 

 apprentices of the apothecaries, but also to all professors and 

 students in medicine, chemistry, botany, and materia medica. 

 The Demonstrator's salary was raised, so that lectures and de- 

 monstrations might be more frequently given, and prizes and 

 medals were offered for success in the examinations. The happy 

 result was that from every medical school in London, students 

 flocked, either on foot or in boats, to the Chelsea Garden : and a 

 course of study there became part of the recognized medical curri- 

 culum, so that in 1862 there were five hundred applications for 

 admission. 



In the course of instruction, demonstrations and, up to 1833, 

 herbalizings also, occupied a very large part. The Society's 

 demonstrations took place not less than once in every summer 

 month ; they began at nine in the morning ; the medical plants 

 were arranged in systematic order in a certain part of the garden, 

 and like a clinical lecturer in a hospital, the Demonstrator passed 

 from bed to bed followed and surrounded by his pupils, to whom 

 he pointed out the plants, explaining their uses in medicine, 

 tl^pir botanical character, and their place in the Linnaeian 

 classification. 



But all these advantages were offered to the male sex only ; 

 it was not until 1877 that the Apothecaries' Society gave even a 

 modicum of encouragement to women. The Court of Assistants 

 then resolved to offer prizes for proficiency in botany to the female 

 sex ; and they were to be competed for in the same manner as 

 those given to men. But Field and Simple, in recording this 

 munificence, take care to explain that by this resolution " it was 

 not at all intended to promote the assumption by ladies of medical 

 titles, or to sanction the adoption of the medical profession by 



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