HISTORICAL NOTICES OF CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS. 203 
troubled, and vexed divers persons, as well as men as women, whom God had 
endued with a knowledge of the nature, kind, and operation of certain herbs, 
roots, and waters, and the using and ministering of them to such as has been 
pained and customable diseases,—as women’s breasts being sore, a pin and the 
web in the eye, un comes of hands, burnings, scaldings, etc.; the cure of these 
strange maladies w r ere effected, the Act says, on poor people for neighbour¬ 
hood and God s sake, and of pity and charity, and therefore it proceeds to 
ordain that henceforth it shall be lawful to every person, being the Kind’s 
subject, having knowledge of these said herbs, roots, etc., by speculation or 
practice, in England or within the King’s dominions, to practise, use and 
minister, etc. ; however, it would seem that these irregular practitioners had 
to confine their skill to outward applications, such as ointments, poultices, and 
plasters. 
I shall' now call your attention to what appears the first Pharmacopoeia. 
In May 1018 (two hundred and forty-three years ago) the College of Physi¬ 
cians issued for the first time a Pharmacopoeia of their own, to be distributed 
amongst the apothecaries ; but we are told that, it was- so imperfect that they 
were obliged to recall it, and issue an improved edition in December of the 
same year ; and this, like the subsequent Pharmacopoeias, was published in 
Latin, and it was by our old and quaint friend Culpepper, the herbalist, trans¬ 
lating it into English that he incurred the censure and reprobation of his pro¬ 
fessional brethren to such an extent, that although qualified by education 
(which he had obtained at Cambridge University), he was refused a licence 
to practise. It is interesting and amusing to read bow strangely Culpepper 
read the Materia Medica; how he arranged his “Astrological judgment of 
Diseases how he adhered to the doctrine of signatures, in the one case, at¬ 
tributing peculiar virtues to herbs gathered under certain planetary condi¬ 
tions, and in the other, inferring that every plant carried with it the marked 
impress of its own use. Thus he says :— 
“ Because out of thy thoughts God shall not pass ; 
His image stamped, is on every grass.” 
And I cannot help thinking that this same practice at least is not even now 
extinct,—we have saffron for measles, turmeric for jaundice, nettles for 
nettle-rash, and so on ; it is true this is not professionally recognized, at the 
same time it shows how tenaciously we adhere to some relics of a bygone 
age. 
The exclusive method adopted by the College, whereby Culpepper and 
others were not recognized, induced them to adopt.evasive measures, such as 
to use medicines prescribed in similar cases by the properly qualified. To us 
this seems strange; but it must have prevailed to some considerable extent, 
for we find the next effort made to prevent irregular practice is to have nos¬ 
trums, which Gray says could only be obtained at their own houses, or that 
ot a confidential apothecary. Who can wonder, then, at the spread of speci¬ 
fics, and that every succeeding age has improved on its predecessor, till at 
last we seem to have reached the apex of puffing,—from Morison and Hollo¬ 
way to medicated paper for the watercloset? However, to recur back to my 
subject, a decision of the House of Lords enabled the unrecognized practi¬ 
tioner to rely on his own skill, and not to adopt the prescription of another; 
this blow to the exclusive induced them to open their college to such as would 
voluntarily present themselves for examination in any branch of physic, and 
to license them for whatever department they were found qualified for; and 
thus it lias always been that the greatest amount of liberty, compatible with 
the public interests, succeeds best. 
ilie early association of the apothecaries with grocers is a curious feature 
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