Am;^iY;i9ifiarm-}  London  Botanic  Gardens.  173 
thereafter,  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  compounder  of  drugs,  or 
dispenser,  and  the  term  is  still  used  in  this  sense  in  the  United 
States.  By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  the  prac- 
tice of  prescribing  drugs  as  well  as  that  of  dispensing  them  had  been 
assumed  by  the  apothecary,  and  by  a  decision  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  in  1703,  it  was  definitely  settled  that  the  directing  and  order- 
ing of  remedies  was,  no  less  than  their  preparation,  a  legimate  part 
of  the  apothecaries'  functions.  The  powers  of  the  Society  of  Apoth- 
ecaries were  further  extended  by  the  Acts  of  1748  and  181 5,  which 
restricted  the  practice  of  the  apothecary's  art  to  such  as  were  duly 
licensed  by  the  Society.  These  restrictions  only  applied  to  London 
and  its  environs  at  first,  but,  by  the  latter  Act,  were  made  to  com- 
prise the  whole  of  England  and  Wales.  By  these  two  Acts  the 
Society  was  also  empowered  to  appoint  a  board  of  examiners,  and 
it  is  a  significant  fact  that  our  existing  medical  schools  are,  in  a  great 
measure,  the  outcome  of  the  evidence  of  training  required  from  can- 
didates by  this  board.  The  Society  has,  indeed,  been  a  pioneer  in 
the  cause  of  education  on  more  than  one  occasion,  and,  in  1850,  it 
imposed  a  preliminary  examination  in  arts  on  its  prospective  licen- 
tiates. This  examination  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  forerunner  of 
the  preliminary  knowledge  in  arts  that  is  now  essential  for  regis- 
tration as  a  medical  student  in  the  British  Isles.  By  the  Medical 
Acts  of  1858  and  1886,  the  licentiateship  of  the  Society  of  Apothe- 
caries was  recognized  as  a  complete  legal  qualification  for  the  prac- 
tice of  medicine,  surgery  and  midwifery  throughout  the  United 
Kingdom  and  Ireland.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Society's  existence 
the  knowledge  of  the  "  art  and  mystery  "  of  the  apothecary  was 
acquired  through  apprenticeship,  and  it  is  on  record  that  the  Society 
examined  its  apprentices  as  early  as  161 9;  by  the  Act  of  1815  a 
five  years'  apprenticeship  to  an  apothecary  was  made  obligatory  on 
every  candidate  for  the  license,  but  this  restriction  was  removed  by 
the  Apothecaries'  Act  Amendment  Act  of  1874,  and  apprenticeship 
is  now  no  longer  necessary. 
In  addition  to  the  licentiateship,  the  Society  of  Apothecaries 
grants  a  dispenser's  certificate,  but  this  is  of  limited  value,  as  it 
practically  restricts  its  possessor  to  the  work  of  dispensing  for  medi- 
cal men  ;  the  Pharmacy  Acts  cited  above  making  it  unlawful  for  any 
person  not  registered  under  those  Acts  "  to  sell  or  keep  open  shop 
for  retailing,  dispensing  or  compounding  poisons,"  or  to  assume  the 
