called there monbin or monbain, and by botanists Spondias lutea. This wood was brought to England in great abundance for that use. The spongy root of a North American tree, known by the name of nyssa, is also used for the same end, as are the roots of liquorice, which on that account is much cultivated in Sclavonia, and exported to other countries, and likewise the black poplar, for its bark is employed by the Cossacks as stoppers to their flasks, and the Eschynomene lagenaria, which is used instead of cork in Cochin-China 2.

[That most useful substance, caoutchouc, now replaces cork for numerous purposes, and is superior to it in almost every respect, especially in its greater elasticity, in being subject to less injury from the action of many substances, and but slightly affected by moisture or dryness. It also keeps better, and is not much more expensive. The quantity of stoppers now manufactured by the Patent Caoutchouc Company is perfectly astonishing.]

APOTHECARIES.

THE history of the materia medica is a subject fit to be undertaken only by physicians like Baldinger, Hensler, Mohsen 3, and Gruner, who to an intimate acquaintance with what belongs to their own profession, have united a knowledge of every other branch of science. By making this acknowledgment, I wish to guard against the imputation of vanity, which I might incur as attempting to encroach on the province of such learned men. That however is not the case. My intention is only to lay before the public what I have collected respecting this subject, because I have reason to flatter myself, that, however

1 Gmelin's Reise durch Russland, i. p. 138. Pallas, Flora Russica, i. p. 66. 2 Loureiro Flora Cochin-Chin. p. 447.

3 Dr. Mohsen has already published a considerable part of what belongs to this subject in his Geschichte der Wissenschaften in der Mark Brandenburg, besonders der Arzneywissenschaft. Berlin, 1781, 4to, p. 372. Some information also respecting the history of apothecaries may be found in Thomassii Dissert. de Jure circa Pharmacopolia Civitatum, in his Disrestationes Academicæ, Halle, 1774, 4 vols. quarto.

trifling, it may be of some use until a complete history be obtained; and because I may have met with some scattered information, which, without my research, might have escaped the notice of abler writers. Whoever is acquainted with such labour, will at any rate allow that this is possible; and I hope the following essay towards a history of apothecaries will not prove unacceptable to my readers.

That the medicines prescribed by the Greek and Roman physicians for their patients were prepared by themselves is so well known, that I think it unnecessary to produce proofs with which no one can be unacquainted who has read Theophrastus, Hippocrates, and Galen. They caused those herbs, of which almost the whole materia medica then consisted, to be collected by others; and we have reason to believe that the gathering and selling of medicinal plants must have at an early period been converted into a distinct employment, especially as many of them being exotics, it was necessary to procure them from remote countries, which every physician had not an opportunity of visiting; and as some of them were applied to a variety of purposes, they were sought after by others as well as by medical practitioners. Several of them were employed in cookery and for seasoning different dishes; many in dyeing and painting, some of them as cosmetics, others for perfumes, some for ointments, which were much used in the numerous baths, and not a few of them may have been employed also in other arts and manufactures. It must have been very convenient for the physicians to purchase from these dealers in herbs, such articles as they had occasion to use; but it is probable, and can even be proved, that these people soon injured them in their profession, by encroaching on their business. In the course of time they acquired a knowledge of the healing virtues of their commodities, and of the preparation they required, which was then extremely simple: and many of them began to sell compounded medicines, and to boast of possessing secrets more beneficial to mankind. To these dealers in herbs belong the pigmentarii, seplasiarii, pharmacopolæ, medicamentarii, and others who were perhaps thus distinguished by separate names on account of some very trifling circumstances in which they differed, or by dealing in one particular article more than in another. Some of these names also may possibly have been used only at certain periods, or in some

places more than in others; and perhaps it would be fruitless labour to attempt to define their difference correctly. That the pigmentarii dealt in medicines is proved by the law which established a punishment for such as sold any one poison through mistake'. The herbs which Vegetius 2 prescribes for the diseases of cattle were to be bought from the seplasiarii ; and that they sold also medicines ready prepared is proved by the reproach thrown out by Pliny against the physicians of his time, that instead of making up their medicines themselves as formerly, they purchased them from the seplasiarii, without so much as knowing of what they were composed. That the pharmacopola carried on a like trade appears evident from their name; but people of judgement placed no confidence in them, and they were despised on account of their impudent boasting, and the extravagant praises they bestowed on their commodities +. The medicamentarii do not often occur, but we are given to understand by Pliny 5, that they followed an employment of the same nature; and it appears that they must have been very worthless, for in the Theodosian code, male and female poisoners are called medicamentarii and medicamentariæ 6.

It may be readily perceived that these herb-dealers had a greater resemblance to our grocers, druggists, or mountebanks, than to our apothecaries. It is well known that the word apotheca signified any kind of store, magazine, or warehouse, and that the proprietor or keeper of such a store was called apothecarius. It would be a very great mistake, therefore, if in writings of the thirteenth and fourteenth century, where these expressions occur, we should understand under the latter apothecaries such as ours are at presents. At these periods,

1 Digest. lib. xlviii. tit. 8, 3, 3.

2 De Mulomedic. iii. 2, 21, p. 1107. 3 Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 11. 4 Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. x. p. 121. Aulus Gellius, lib. i. cap. 15. 5 Lib. xix. cap. 6. 6 Cod. Theodos. iii. tit. 16. 7 Proofs of this may be found in Glossarium Manuale, vol. i. p. 298. From the word apotheca the Italians have made boteca, and the French boutique. 8 In the Nurnberger Bürgerbuch mention is made of Mr. Conrade Apotheker, 1403; Mr. Hans Apotheker, 1427; and Mr. Jacob Apotheker, 1433. See Von Murr's Jornal der Kunstgeschichte, vi. p. 79. Henricus Apothecarius occurs as a witness at Gorlitz, in a charter of the year 1439; and one John Urban Apotheker excited an insurrection against the magistrates of Lauban in 1439. See Buddæi Singularia Lusatica, vol. ii. p. 424, 500. One cannot with any certainty determine whether these people were properly apothecaries, which must be borne in mind in reading the following passage of Von Stetten in his Kunstgeschichte der Stadt Augsburg, p. 242:

those were often called apothecaries who at courts and in the . houses of great people prepared for the table various preserves, particularly fruit incrusted with sugar, and who on that account may be considered as confectioners. What peculiarly distinguishes our apothecaries is, that they sell drugs used in medicine, and prepare from them different compounds according to the prescriptions given by physicians and others. But here arises a question: When did physicians begin to give up entirely the preparation of medicines to such apothecaries, who must now be more than herb-dealers, and must understand chemistry? And when did the apothecaries acquire an exclusive title to that business and to their present name? It is probable that physicians gradually became accustomed to employ such assistance for the sake of their own convenience, when they found in their neighbourhood a druggist in whose skill they could confide, and whose interest they wished to promote, by resigning in his favour that occupation.

Conring asserts, without any proof, but not however without probability', that the physicians in Africa first began to give up the preparation of medicines after their prescriptions to other ingenious men; and that this was customary so early as the time of Avenzoar in the eleventh century. Should that be the case, it would appear that this practice must have been first introduced into Spain and the lower part of Italy, as far as the possessions of the Saracens then extended, by the Arabian physicians who accompanied the Caliphs or Arabian princes. It is probable, therefore, that many Arabic terms of art were by these means introduced into pharmacy and chemistry, for the origin of which we are indebted to that nation, and which have been still retained and adopted. Hence it may be explained why the first known apothecaries were to be found in the lower part of Italy; but at any rate we have reason to conclude, that they obtained their first legal establishment by the well-known medical edict of the emperor Frederic II., issued for the kingdom of Naples, and from which Thomasius deduces the privileges they enjoy at present2. By "In very old times there was a family here who had the name of Apotheker, and it is very probable that some of this family had kept a public apothecary's shop. Luitfried Apotheker, or in der Apothek, lived in the year 1285, and Hans Apotheker was, in 1317, city chamberlain."

1 De Hermetica Medicina libri duo. Helmst. 1669, p. 293.

This edict may be found in Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum,

that edict it was required that the confectionarii should take an oath to keep by them fresh and sufficient drugs, and to make up medicines exactly according to the prescriptions of the physicians; and a price was fixed at which the stationarii might vend medicines so prepared, and keep them a year or two for sale in a public shop or store. The physicians at Salerno had the inspection of the stationes, which were not to be established in every place, but in certain towns. The confectionarii appear to have been those who made up the medicines or confectiones. The statio was the house where they were sold, or, according to the present mode of expression, the apothecary's shop; and the stationarii seem to have been the proprietors, or those who had the care of selling the medicines. The word apotheca seldom occurs in that edict; when it does, it signifies the warehouse or repository where the drugs were preserved. I however find no proof in it that the physicians at that time sent their prescriptions to the stationes to be made up. It appears rather that the confectionarii prepared medicines from a general set of prescriptions legally authorised, and that the physicians selected from these medicines, kept ready for use, such as they thought most proper to be administered to their patients. A physician who had passed an examination, and obtained a licence to practise, was obliged to swear that he would observe formam curia hactenus observatam ; and if he found quod aliquis confectionarius minus bene conficiat, he was obliged to give information to the curia. The confectionarii swore that they would make up confectiones, secundum prædictam formam. It was necessary that electuaries, syrups, and other medicines, should be accompanied with a certificate from a physician to show that they were properly prepared. I must acknowledge that the edict alludes here only to some medicines commonly employed; and I am surprised that the recipes are not mentioned, if such were then in use. I have never had the good fortune to meet with the word Receptum used to signify a prescription in any works of the above century. The practice of physicians writing out, almost at every visit, the method of preparing the medicines which they order, may perhaps have been introduced at a p. 809. The law properly here alluded to, de probabili experientia medicorum, is by most authors ascribed to the emperor Frederic I., but by Conring to his grandson Frederic II. See Conring De Antiquitatibus Academicis. Gottinga, 1739, 4to, p. 60.