BRISTOL PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION. 
615 
land, was laid by the jealousy of the London physicians, who saw their position im¬ 
perilled, and their fees melting away. The apothecaries offered a compromise, but 
were quickly repelled, and fifty members of the College of Physicians subscribed £10 
each, and opened a dispensary in Warwick Lane. 
This famous dispute raged for many years, and produced a host of books, pamphlets, 
and poems, the most noted being the work of Samuel Garth, then a young physician 
just admitted Fellow of his College. 
As in most otner quarrels, there were grave faults on both sides, but, for a time, 
Garth’s bitter satire covered the apothecaries with confusion. 
Dr. Arbuthnot expressed his contempt for them in an elaborate essay, in which he 
scorns their “ pedantic dressing of their discourse in the language of the faculty,” 
and says, “ At meals they distributed their wine with a little lymph, dissected a 
widgeon, cohobated a pease-porridge, and amalgamated a custard. A morsel of beef 
was a bolus, a grillard was scarified, eating was mastication and deglutition ; a dish 
of steaks was a compound of many powerful ingredients ; and a plate of soup was a 
very exalted preparation. In dress, a suit of clothes was a system, a loophole a valve, 
and a surtout an integument. Cloth was a texture of fibres spread upon a drab or 
kersey ; a small rent in it was cutaneous, a thread was a filament, and the waistband 
of the breeches was the peritoneum.” 
As an indication of the position of the apothecaries at this period, I cannot do 
better than quote William Bulleyn’s rules for an apothecary’s life and conduct. 
“The Apoticarye. 
“ 1. Must fyrst God, forsee the end, be clenly, pity the poore. 
“ 2. Must not be suborned for money to hurt mankynde. 
“ 3. His place of dwelling and shop to be clenly to please the sences withal. 
“ 4. His garden must be at hand with plenty of herbes, seedes, and rootes. 
“ 5. To sow, set, plant, gather, preserve, and kepe them in due tyme. 
“ 6. To read Dioscorides, to know ye natures of plants and herbes. 
“ 7. To invent medicines, to chose by colours, tast, odour, figure, etc. 
“ 8. To have his morters, stilles, pottes, filters, glasses, boxes cleane and sweete. 
“ 9. To have charcoales at hand, to make decoctions, syrupes, etc. 
“ 10. To kepe his cleane ware closse, and cast away the baggage. 
“ 11. To have two places in hi 3 shop ; one most cleane for the phisik, and a baser 
place for the chirurgie stuff. 
“ 12. That he neither increase or diminish the phisician’s bill (or prescription), and 
kepe it for his own discharge. 
“ 13. That he neither buy nor sell rotten drugges. 
“ 14. That he peruse often his wares, that they corrupt not. 
“ 15. That he put not in quid pro quo (i. e. use one ingredient for another) without 
advysement. 
“16. That he may open wel a vein for to helpe pleurisy. 
“ 17. That he meddle only in his vocation. 
“18. That he delyte to reede Nicolaus Myrepsus, Valerius Cordus, Johannes Pla- 
caton, the ‘ Lubik,’ etc. 
«19. That he do remember his office is only to be ye phisician’s cooke. 
“ 20. That he use true measure and waight. 
“And, last, To remember his end, and the judgement of God. And thus I do 
comend him to God, if he be not covetous, or crafty, seeking his own lucre before 
other men’s help, succour, and comfort.” 
These excellent rules serve to show the light in which the apothecaries were held 
in the Elizabethan age. Evidently they were expected to humble themselves before 
the lordly physicians, many of whom, although members of the college, were little 
better than arrant quacks. Keeping their most curious and powerful recipes a secret, 
they vended them as nostrums, and in the reign of Charles II. many physicians 
realized large sums by opening, advertising, and selling their secret remedies. Doubt¬ 
less some of the oldest patent medicines still in vogue could be traced back to this period. 
The Court physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne, was celebrated for his “balsam of bats,” 
