I PRESENT STATE OF PHARMACY IN ENGLAND. 
,)art of the physicians, who, about the close of the seven- 
teenth century, established dispensaries for the sale of 
simple medicines, and for compounding prescriptions, to 
which they sent their patients. At these establishments, 
medicines were sold at reasonable prices, and no exorbi- 
tance manifested in reference to prescriptions. They gra- 
dually acquired a degree of popularity that excited a bitter 
enmity in the apothecaries, whose sales and profits were 
materially curtailed by being confined chiefly to their own 
practice. When these dispensaries had acquired so firm a 
footing in public confidence, as to proceed alone, the phy- 
sicians, whose aim had been solely to punish the apotheca- 
ries, severed their connection, and left the establishments 
in the hands of the class of persons, who, for a series of 
years, had taken charge of them, and devoted their time 
and talents solely to Pharmacy. These persons were the 
original pharmaceutists, or chemists and druggists of Eng- 
land, the progenitors of the very extensive and respectable 
body of men, now represented by the Pharmaceutical So- 
ciety of Great Britain. 
In 1794, so sensible had the apothecaries become of the 
progressive power and influence of the chemists and drug- 
gists, (a body of men, which they said in disparagement 
were unknown a century before,) that a general meeting 
of the metropolitan apothecaries was called at the Crown 
and Anchor tavern, to take measures to repress or circum- 
scribe the chemists and druggists for their " unjust and inno- 
vating usurpation " of the rights and immunities of the 
apothecaries. One of the charges thus brought against the 
druggists was, " that were their aggregate profits divided 
amongst the apothecaries, as it ought to be, each of the 
latter would have an addition of 200 pounds sterling to his 
income. They spoke of this " evil " as not being confined 
to the capital, but as a morbific infection which had begun 
at the capital as a central point, and had diffused its deadly 
breath from thence to all the chief cities and towns ; and 
