166         DISMEMBERMENT  OF  PHARMACY  FROM  PHYSIC. 
tables  of  succedanea  have  since  appeared.  Besides  these  medi- 
cines compounded  with  honey  or  sugar,  the  confectionarii  sold 
sweetmeats.  They  were  also  called  apothecaries,  along  with 
some  other  traders  who  sold  merchandise  ;  for  apothecary  merely 
means  a  shop  or  magazine  where  any  sort  of  merchandise  is  sold 
— and  apothecarius  is  the  proprietor  of  such.  Thus,  from  the 
intermixture  of  the  two  trades,  a  confusion  of  names  ensued  ; 
and  it  is  on  this  account,  no  doubt,  that  we  find  in  Scripture  the 
same  word  one  time  translated  "apothecary,"  and  at  another 
time  confectioner.  Even  in  the  present  time  apothecaries  sell 
what  are  called  confections,  and  confectioners  sell  medicated 
lozenges.  I  have  looked  into  a  MS.  Bible  in  the  British  Muse- 
um, supposed  to  be  older  than  Wycliffe's,  for  the  passages  in 
which  the  word  "  apothecary  "  occurs  in  our  present  translation, 
and  find  that,  in  all  cases,  it  is  translated  "  oyntemente  maker," 
but  that  is  not  an  apothecary. 
The  trade  of  preparing  and  vending  ointments  and  aromatics 
seems  to  have  been  extensively  practised  in  early  Greece  and 
Rome  ;  but  the  persons  who  carried  it  on  frequently  sold  certain 
medicines  along  with  these  other  wares.  None  of  them  sold 
medicines  exclusively. 
The  Lacedaemonians  banished  ointment-makers  because  they 
wasted  oil,  and  dyers  because  they  destroyed  the  whiteness  of 
wool.  The  sage  Solon  interdicted  the  sale  of  ointments  al- 
together, as  only  appertaining  to  luxury  (Athengeus).  The  oint- 
ments used  in  the  time  of  Homer  were  kept  in  alabaster  boxes ; 
they  were  also  kept  in  vases.  The  picture  of  one  is  given  in 
"Le  pitture  antiche  d'Ercolano,"  the  narrow  mouth  of  which 
shows  that  these  ointments  must  have  been  liquid.  The  Romans 
had  a  different  ointment  for  the  different  parts  of  the  body.  The 
ointments  bore  a  higher  price  than  any  other  luxury.  When  an 
Egyptian  king  died  no  one  dare  use  them  (Diod.  Sic.)  So  per- 
fect were  the  Egyptians  in  the  manufacture  of  these  odoriferous 
ointments,  that  an  ancient  specimen  still  exists  which  retains  its 
perfume.  The  spikenard. of  the  ancients,  from  which  so  costly 
an  ointment  was  prepared,  was  determined  by  Sir  Wm.  Jones  to 
be  a  protean  plant,  valerian,  a  sister  of  the  mountain  and  Celtic 
nard.    (Asiatic  Researches.) 
