230 
ON MEDICINE AND PHARMACY IN TURKEY. 
empire, without the authority of the Government. Any person 
may practice medicine as he thinks proper. 
As for Pharmacy, this profession is in Turkey in the most de- 
plorable condition. It is only in the first towns in the empire, and 
principally in Constantinople and Smyrna, that there are among a 
crowd of wretchedly bad Pharmaceutical establishments, a few 
which may be compared to those of Italy and France. Moreover, 
those who keep shops are many of them French, but the majority 
are Italians and Greeks. The shops of the latter are in much bet- 
ter condition than those of the Italians. The most detestable of 
all, and which scarcely deserves the name of " Pharmacies," are 
those kept by Armenians, Jews, and the Turks themselves. In the 
town of Constantinople, properly so-called, or the town of By- 
zance, the number of these small shops, where five or six persons 
can scarcely move, amounts to several hundreds. All their supply 
of medicines consists of about fifty or sixty different kinds, enclosed 
in boxes, in large glass jars of different sizes, and in small drawers. 
Most of these substances have no labels, from which circumstance 
the most unpardonable mistakes continually occur. In other shops, 
which are not much better furnished, are found an innumerable 
quantity of jars and boxes, either empty, or in which the same 
article is repeated five times or more under different names. Thus, 
in Constantinople, I have seen in the shop of a Jew of Salonica, 
vitriolated tartar contained in seven vases, and under seven dif- 
ferent but synonymous terms : and on my inquiry whether these 
were not the same substance, I was told that each salt possessed a 
particular curative virtue, and required a distinct mode of prepara- 
tion. 
There are at Constantinople nearly 1200 Pharmacies of this 
description. About 300, resembling more or less those of Europe, 
are worthy of the name. The latter are in the districts of Galata, 
of Slavodronia, and in general in those parts of the towm inhabited 
by Europeans. Even these establishments have their faults, and 
quackery triumphs. Few of these shops have what may be termed 
a laboratory ; as rarely have they ware-houses or cellars. It is in 
the shop itself that all the medicinal substances are accumulated 
and prepared. The best arrangement observable in the Turkish 
shops, is that the medicines are enclosed in glass cases ; by this 
means they are protected from the terrible dust which, in the sura- 
