268 PROGRESS OP PHARMACY IN GREAT BRITIAN. 
and the web in the eye, uncomes of the hands, scaldings, 
&c., and such other Uke diseases. * * * ^^nd yet the 
said persons have not taken any thing for their pains or 
cunning. * * In consideration whereof, and for the ease, 
comfort, and succour, help, reUef, and health of the King's 
poor subjects, inhabitants of this, his reahn, now pained or 
diseased, or that hereafter shall be pained or diseased, Be 
it ordained, &c., that at all time from henceforth, it shall be 
lawfull to every person being the king's subject, having 
knowledge and experience of the nature of herbs, roots, and 
waters, &c., to use and minister, * * according to their cun- 
ning, experience and knowledge, * * the aforesaid statute 
* * or any other act notwithstanding.^' 
This act has reference to the practice of medicine without 
remuneration, and was taken advantage of by empirics to 
evade the law, notwithstanding which, however, numerous 
prosecutions occurred, during the reigns of Queens Mary 
and Elizabeth. 
In 1553, the College of Physicians obtained a new act, 
[l Mary c. 9.] in which tlieir former powers were confirmed 
and enlarged, and in which it is stated that * the four censors 
or any three of tiiem, shall have authority to examine, sur- 
vey, govern, correct and punish all and singular physicians 
and practisers in the faculty of physic, apothecaries, drug- 
gists, distillers, and sellers of waters and oils, and preparers 
of chemical medicines' — according as the nature of his or 
their offences may seem to require." 
The powers thus granted were not a dead letter, as many 
years after, Dr. Alexander Leighton was reprimanded and 
lost his ears, for malpractice. 
Somewhere in the latter part of the 16th century, the Lon- 
don physicians gradually repudiated pharmacy, and it natu- 
rally fell into the hands of their assistants, and an inferior 
class of their own body. In 1606, these apothecaries were 
incorporated into a company, in conjunction with the gro- 
