HISTORICAL NOTICES OF CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS. 
205 
that he brought some with him which he would stand by; these they also 
condemned, when having his witnesses ready, he called them in to prove that 
they were purchased from their own shops. This evidence was too strong for 
them, and they gladly made the matter up. Several cases of arbitrary conduct 
have been recorded against the Apothecaries’ Company, and they do not seem 
to have been very scrupulous as to the means of accomplishing their object; 
for instance, they were anxious to supply the royal household, but they were 
superseded by a Mr. Malthus, and, in consequence, they visited his shop and 
condemned his medicines. Again, a Mr. Goodwin, who was a wholesale apo¬ 
thecary and manufacturing chemist, supplied the Eoyal African Company with 
medicines for their forts, after much opposition from the Apothecaries’ Com¬ 
pany ; and Dr. Shadwell, one of Goodwin’s customers, having repeatedly put 
off paying his account (by no means an uncommon event of some of our profes¬ 
sional brethren), the clerk who called lost his temper, and the doctor in turn 
threatened retaliation ; accordingly, on the 10th June, 1727, the visitors came 
to Goodwin’s shop, at Charing Cross, during his absence on ’Change, and 
burnt many of his articles in the street, and told a person wdio came to buy 
ol. anisi that it was not good, nor anything in the shop; and, to justify their 
proceedings, they carried off some emp. meliloti which had been tw r o or three 
years in Africa, and had comeback in a chest brought to be refilled. 
Not satisfied with this flagrant usurpation of power, they went to another 
shop of his in Charles Street, Westminster, and condemned the goods there, 
taking away a chest of articles to be examined. Mr. Goodwin could not sit 
down quietly under such treatment, and appealed to the law, and it is said 
he recovered £600 damages. 
Other cases of a similar character occurred, but I think it is unnecessary 
that I should adduce more to show the state of thraldom in which the 
druggists of that day suffered. . Besides these efforts the privileged Company 
resorted to print, and they circulated a pamphlet entitled, ‘ Fraud Detected 
in Drugs ;’ how T ever, they were ably answered by a pamphlet, ‘ Monopoly 
made a Property; or, the Navy Surgeon’s Memorial to the Managing Apo¬ 
thecaries in Black Friars. 1708.’ 
2. ‘ The Case of James Goodwin, Chemist and Apothecary. 1727.’ 
It would seem that prior to this the apothecaries had begun to prescribe 
as well as dispense medicines. This encroachment was strongly resisted by 
the College of Physicians, who, by way of retaliation, opened a dispensary 
in Warwick Lane, for the sale of medicines to the poor at prime cost. It is 
said that a paper controversy of great animation arose out of this measure, 
but the tracts then issued on both sides are forgotten, with the exception of 
Garth’s burlesque epic poem, entitled ‘ The Dispensary,’ first published in 
.1697,—a curious copy of this work I happen to have by me. From this 
point, it appears, the custom of combining the druggist and the practitioner 
commenced, for although their position was somewhat equivocal for some 
time, they managed to make it good. The ‘ Spectator,’ no. 195, says, “ The 
apothecary is perpetually employed in countermining the cook and the 
vintner, showing thereby his recognition.” Pope, again, in his 1 Essay on 
Criticism,’ illustrative of the domination of the critic over the poet, says,— 
“ So modern ’pothecaries, taught the art 
By doctor’s bills to play the doctor’s part, 
Bold in tbe practice ol' mistaken rules, 
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.” 
The apothecary was justified in practising at the time, from the miserable 
state of the sick poor; and so long as he confined his practice to this class 
