Victorian Pharmacy

                                                       HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

People wanting their teeth pulled, or to be bled, might visit a barber, or even a surgeon, who combined skills in hairdressing, dentistry, blood-letting and surgery. Surgeons were craftsmen, who learned their skills in long apprenticeships. It was easier to become a surgeon than a physician because a would-be surgeon needed only to rause sufficient funds for an apprenticeship. By 1800, there were 8000 members of the Royal College of Surgeons. Physicians, on the other hand, required a university education - an expensive business, which restricted access to the profession. Theoretically they were the most knowledgeable practitioners. In an era when it was rare for the sick to attend hospital, physicians made home visits, diagnosing illness and prescribing treatments. They were not, however, permitted to act as surgeons, or to dispense drugs. Indeed, physicians were often quite ignorant of the properties of the drugs they prescribed. There were far fewer practising physicians than surgeons or apothecaries: at the start of the nineteenth century, there were just 179 licensed physicians in London; by 1847, there were 643. Each might expect to earn between £1500 and £2000 per year - £88,000-117,000 in today's money. The Victorian apothecary was a cross between a General Practitioner and a dispensing chemist. But his shop was like nothing we would recognise. There were no tempting displays of medicines, herbs or other sundries - medicines were made to order.
The business of selling medicines and drugs was not a licensed activity. Indeed, grocers prescribed medicines, booksellers sold proprietary medicines, and the mail-order business in patent pills, creams and medicines was booming.

                                                                       FIRST AID KIT

                                                           Press an ivy leaf on a cut - the rough side cleans
                                                           the wound and the smooth side helps to heal it;
                                                           eat an onion (raw), if one is unfortunate enough
                                                           to be stung by a wasp in the throat; a soap and
                                                           sugar poultice will draw out a splinter.

                                                                    OIL OF EARTHWORMS

                                                       A useful linament for muscular aches and pains.

                                                                           Dried earth worms 7 oz
                                                                           Olive oil 32 fl oz
                                                                            Wine 2 fl oz

                                                                    Boil together until wine has evaporated.
                                                                    Apply by rubbing the oil into the skin.

                                                           ATTEMPTS AT REGULATION

All those involved in the dispensing of drugs - apothecaries, chemists and druggists - relied on the ever-increasing number of pharmacopoeias available to learn about the latest treatments and practices. New substances were continually being uncovered. In the early past of the nineteenth century, morphine, quinine and strychnine appeared for the first time.
One of the main sources of information for physicians and apothecaries were herbals and pharmacopeia' both offering reference sources on the medicinal properties of plants and minerals. The first London Pharmacopoeia was not published until 1618 when a royal proclamation instructed all apothecaries follow its guide. From 1846, all the various pharmacopoeia editions - London, Edinburgh and Dublin - were absorbed into the single authoritative voice of the British Pharmacopoeia. Unfortuneately, there was still such ignorance of the causes of disease that many of the so-called cures were mere panaceas. Nicholas Culpeper's books, The English Physitian (1652) and The Complete Herbal (1653) were radical in that both were published in vernacular English and were designed to be self-help books for use by the poor who could not afford medical help, though doubtless those who would benefit the most were not literate enough to do so. Nevertheless Culpeper's books are said to be the most successful non-religious text ever and have been in print continuously since the seventeenth century. They provoked fury in both physicians and apothecaries alike who saw the work as a threat to their lucrative business. But then Culpeper was highly critical of physician's skills: 'They are bloodsuckers, true vampires, have learned little since Hippocrates; use blood-letting for ailments above the midriff and purging for those below. They evacuate and revulse their patients until they faint. Black Hellebor, this poisonous stuff, is a favourite laxative. It is surprising that they are so popular and that some patients recover. My own poor patients would not endure this taxing and costly treatment. The victims of physicians only survive since they are from the rich and robust stock, the plethoric, red-skinned residents of Cheapside, Westminster and St James.'

                                                                          Stramonium

The Dratorium stramonium cultivated in Britain. The leaves dried, collected when the plants are in flower, and the ripe seeds. Medicinal Properties: Influences especially the respiratory organs. Much used in asthma; the leaf chiefly by smoking in the form of cigarettes. The extract and the tincture made of the seeds are used in convulsive coughs as antispasmodics and as anodynes in gastrodynia and other painful affections.

Apothecaries were responsible for the supply, compounding and sale of drugs, and this was how they madde their living. They could also make home visits, provide medical advice and prescribe medication, but could not charge for this service. They had established their independence from the Company of Grocers in 1617 when King James I permitted the creation of The Worshipful Society of the Art and Mystery of the Apothecaries.