THE 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
JANUARY, 1 8 50. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF PHARMACY 
IN ENGLAND. 
In a previous number, (Vol. XX. page 265) we have 
given an account of the history of Pharmacy in England, 
from early time to the year 1820. It is proposed to pre- 
sent in the ensuing pages some statements in reference to 
the rise and progress the pharmaceutical reformation that 
has taken place in England during the last ten years. We 
have been able to do this with great readiness from the 
pages of the Pharmaceutical Journal, which ^contain a full 
record of the proceedings of the reformers. 
Perhaps in no other country are the interests of medicine 
so complicated by time-honored customs. Four classes of 
practitioners are in cotemporaneous operation, and despite 
the greater stringency of the law in confining professional 
bodies within their legitimate spheres, the two that practice 
pharmacy are constantly intrudingjipon each other's limits, 
giving rise to jealousies, suits at law, and other unpleasant 
evidences of an ill-conditioned system. Of the physicians, 
properly so called, and the surgeons, we shall have little to 
say, but the history of the "English apothecaries," or 
u general practitioners," as they are frequently called, is so 
intimately connected with that of the chemists and drug- 
1 
