Victorian Pharmacy

This established a rigorous system of apprenticeship, typically lasting years. If the cost of training to become a physician was prohibitive to all but a privileged few, the cost of an apprenticeship to an apothecary was still considerable; in the firts half of the nineteenth century these typically were set at around 500 guineas (£28,000 in today's money). Oral examinations were conducted by members of the society to ensure the candidate was proficient in recognising ingredients as well as in the craft of handling and mixing medicines. It was only after the exam had been passed that the newly qualified apothecary could own or keep a shop. Between 1815 and 1834, six thousand new apothecaries' licenses were issued, half to surgeons who were allowed to have the dual role of apothecary and surgeon. Apothecaries did not have the social standing or wealth of the physicians, who commanded large fees from their well-to-do customers. Instead, they offered healthcare services to everyone - as was true throughout history; the first record of an apothecary's shop dates ro 1345. During the Civil War (1642-49), when the rich fled the cities and were followed by their physicians, the apothecaries remained to tend to the people. Again, when the Great Plague hit London in 1665, it was the apothecaries who dared to stay. The Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) wrote in 1790 that apothecaries were 'the physicians of the poor at all times and the rich when the danger is not very great.' From early in the eighteenth century apothecaries were legally ratified as members of the medicinal profession. Their role developed from dispenser of medicene, to practitioner and dispenser of medicine as they were allowed to prescribe medicines, a progression the physicians were busy defending their position in the market, new traders called chemists and druggists recognised a lucrative gap in the market and slipped in to steal a portion of the trade. This sparked the fury of both physicians and apothecaries, who accused the interlopers of muscling in on their territory, generating even more ill-feeling.
Each group bickered with the other, fighting for business and professional recognition and undermining specialised professional development. Indeed, the only thing they appeared to agree about was the exclusion of women from any medical profession. However, the Apothecaries Act of 1815 gave tacit approval to the apothecary's new role of general practitioner of medicine. It also recognised the right of chemists and druggists to prepare, compound, dispense and sell drugs and medicines. The emergence of chemists and druggists marked the true start of the pharmacy industry. They had first appeared towards the end of the eighteenth century and spread with the increase in urbanisation offering customers a reliable outlet for the purchase of over-the-counter medicines. They stayed open for long hours and were available in emergencies, meeting the needs of a population which, far from fields, hedgerows and cottage gardens, no longer had access to the raw materials they needed for homemade remedies. Moreover, despite the furore, they were not breaking any rules, since there was no regulations for the sale of deadly poisons, such as arsenic, or addictive, over-the-counter medicines, such as laudanum, they were free to muscle in on the market. These interlopers also supplied all manner of ready-made 'proprietary' medicines: miracle cures such as Clarke's Blood Mixture, 'The World Famous Blood Purifier and Restorer'; or Burgess's Lion Ointment, 'Amputation avoided - the knife superseded.' Chemists and druggists were not required to have dispensing qualifications. At best, they might have undertaken an apprenticeship with an apothecary, but there was no requirement for them to pass any exams. They were not permitted to prescribe as apothecaries could. Unofficially, though, they engaged in 'counter practice', recommending products for various ailments, or hurrying their customer away to seek the advice of an apothecary or physician post-haste. A bill introduced in 1841 proposed that after 1 February 1842 no person could practice medicine without a certificate, and that after December 1842 no one could carry out the business of a chemist or druggist without a certificate. Practising medicine was defined as recommending, prescribing or ordering any medicine, remedy or application, while the chemist and druggist was defined as a person able to dispense or mix for sale any drug or medicine. However, the bill failed to get support in the House of Commons. The group behind the bill did not give up the fight. In 1841, they proposed the formation of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (PSGB), whose function was to elevate the status of the practice of pharmacy. It aimed to head a defined and regulated programme of professional education and to unite the profession into one body. Chemists and druggists instead of being excluded, as they had always previously been, were invited to participate in the formation of the Society. Within two years, the Pharmaceutical Society had established a School of Pharmacy and had won a royal charter (1843). The title 'Royal' was granted to the society in 1988.
Legislation from 1852 established a Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists for those who had passed The Pharmaceutical Society's exams. It is at this time that the terms pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist and pharmacy begin to enter into popular usage - the first recorded use of the word in England does not appear until the 1830s. While its use indicates the attainment of formal professional
standards, the public then, as now, mixed the terms chemist, druggist and pharmacy freely to describe a shop that sold medicines. The Medical Act of 1858 saw the faltering beginnings of a much needed process of reform; formal programmes of education were laid down to ensure that students achieved minimum standards of competence in medicine, surgery and midwifery. Regulations controlling the sale and compounding of medicines followed behind. The Pharmacy Act of 1868 restricted sale, dispensing and compounding of poisons to people who had been examined and registered by the PSGB. At this time the term 'Chemist and Druggist' was used by the PSGB to describe those who had passed its minor examination and therefore met with the minimum requirement to register as a pharmacist and the use of the title 'chemist and druggist' was restricted to legally registered pharmacists. The formation of the Pharmaceutical Society in 1841 also saw the launch of The Pharmaceutical Journal, a monthly with a firm emphasis on pharmaceutical education and science, until 1870 when it became weekly. The Chemist & Druggist, a monthly trade circular, was launched in competition in 1859, it was more popularist in approach, and included regular features on the trade prices of medicinal compounds, court reports detailing many mishaps from accidentally poisoning to bankruptcy. A popular feature was the exchange of recipes.

Despite legislative controls standards were not what we might expect today. As late as 1899, (1850-1931), the man who established Boots the Chemist, commented:

I thoroughly welcome legislation that will compel every chemist's and druggist shop, whether belonging to a company or otherwise, to be wholly and solely under the control of a registered chemist or manager. I will go further than that, and state that I should be equally glad to welcome that legislation should enforce the work of dispensing medicines should also be confined in every shop to a registered chemist.

At the turn of the century, Jesse Boot advocated a new approach. He himself had had no prospect of becoming a qualified pharmacist since his family lacked the funds. He instigated a scheme to recruit and support promising boys through an apprenticeship, and paid them 10 shillings (10/-) weekly in the first year of apprenticeship, 12 shillings and sixpence (12/6) in the second, 15/-in the third, and 17/6 in the fourth. Assistants who had worked for Boot for more than two years were eligible to compete for four scholarships offered annually, to enable them to take six-month full-time course at a recognised school of pharmacy and to sit the Minor examination. Jesse Boot commented:

Formerly the drug trade was one that could only be enetered into by those having money and friends. With us a good salary is given during apprenticeship, scholarships to our assistants, and after passing their examinations good and improving situations are found for them. To me the most satisfactory feature of our business is that we have men on the staff who have passed their qualifying examination with credit, and for this not to have cost their parents or friends a penny.

Boot also encouraged chemists to give young assistants a lesson in Latin before they started work at 8 a.m. and provided training for dispensing assistants.
In the 64-year reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), there were revolutionary breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of many life-threatening diseases, as well as in education and laws relating to healthcare and the provision of medicines and poisons. Consumer medicine reached the high street, creating a new medical industry that sold traditional herbal remedies as well as the newest proprietary medicines and which played a role in transforming public health. Sir Joseph Swan (1828-1914), physicist, chemist and inventor of the incandescent electric light bulb, maintained that an educated pharmacist was 'one of society's most useful and necessary members.'