400  Beginnings  of  Pharmacy  in  America.  {A^pfembeffi907?' 
Massachusetts  Colony,  says  that  at  least  six  or  seven,  if  not  a  larger 
number,  of  the  early  physicians  were  also  ministers  of  the  gospel ; 
one  was  a  school-teacher  and  also  a  doctor  ;  one  practiced  medicine 
and  kept  a  tavern,  and  at  least  one  of  these  early  medical  men  of 
the  Massachusetts  Colony  was  a  genuine  butcher.  In  other  colonies, 
particularly  in  Pennsylvania,  several  of  the  early  physicians  occupied 
public  positions  in  the  various  departments  of  the  Colonial  Gov- 
ernment. 
The  general  good  health  of  the  early  colonists  is  commented  on 
by  a  number  of  the  contemporaneous  writers.  Among  others, 
Gabriel  Thomas,  in  his  "  Historical  Account  of  the  Province  and 
Country  of  Pennsylvania,"  published  in  1 698,  says:  "  Of  lawyers 
and  physicians  I  shall  say  nothing,  because  this  country  is  very 
peaceable  and  healthy ;  long  may  it  so  continue,  and  never  have 
occasion  for  the  tongue  of  the  one  nor  the  pen  of  the  other,  both 
equally  destructive  of  men's  estates  and  lives !  " 
Similar  conditions  appear  to  have  prevailed  in  the  Massachusetts 
Colony,  for  Giles  Firmin,  an  apothecary,  and  one  of  the  first  medical 
practitioners  to  teach  anatomy  in  this  country,  is  quoted  as  having 
written  to  Governor  Winthrop :  "  I  am  strongly  sett  upon  to  studye 
divinitie,  my  studies  else  must  be  lost,  for  physic  is  but  a  meene 
helpe." 
In  one  particular,  however,  all  of  these  early  practitioners  were 
the  same  ;  they  invariably  dispensed  their  own  medicines,  or  at  most 
directed  the  relatives  or  friends  of  the  patient  to  prepare  such  potions 
from  indigenous  or  cultivated  herbs  or  roots  as  they  thought  neces- 
sary for  the  needs  or  wants  of  the  sick  individual. 
The  apothecary  shop,  as  it  existed  at  a  later  period  in  the  larger 
cities  of  the  American  Colonies,  was  usually  the  dispensary  of  a 
more  or  less  progressive  or  successful  medical  practitioner  who 
occasionally  deigned  to  enlarge  on  his  otherwise  meagre  income  by 
the  sale  of  sundry  articles,  like  spices  or  tea,  which  at  that  time  were 
counted  among  the  luxuries  of  the  more  settled  portions  of  the 
country. 
The  first  record  we  have  of  the  appointment  of  an  apothecary  to 
fill  prescriptions  other  than  his  own  or  those  of  his  preceptor,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  "  Account  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital,  from  Its 
Rise  to  the  Beginning  of  the  Fifth  Month,  called  May,  1754,"  written 
by  Benjamin  Franklin,  then  the  clerk  or  secretary  of  the  Board  of 
