History of Medicine

Abstract

The Society of Apothecaries is both a City livery company and an examining authority for the medical profession. Founded in 1617 by the royal apothecary Gideon de Laune leading a breakaway group from the Grocers' Company, the Society was instrumental in raising the status of apothecaries as general practitioners. Under the Apothecaries' Act (1815) the Society examined for the LSA and it now awards the LMSSA (Licence in Medicine and Surgery of the Society of Apothecaries) and postgraduate diplomas, while maintaining the civic, charitable, and ceremonial traditions of a livery company of the City of London. T he skill of the medieval apothecary lay in his knowledge of plants, his ability to compound and dispense medicines and remedies, his willingness to treat the sick poor and to perform basic surgery. Nothing if not versatile, the apothecary was the physician's cook, the com-munity's general practitioner, and the local pharmacist whose shop was a storehouse of pungent powders, fragrant herbs, and contorted roots. Jars of mysterious drugs and syrups lined the shelves, jostling for space with dried animal skins and seeds; perhaps a stuffed alligator or a desiccated tortoise hung from the ceiling. 1 The spicers, pepperers, and apothecaries of medieval London fell under the jurisdiction of the powerful Grocers' Company. As their prosperity increased apothecaries came to resent the restrictions, discipline, and shop searches imposed by the Grocers; they desired independence and the control of their own affairs. The poor laws of the Elizabethan era had the effect of enhancing the role of apothecaries who became largely responsible for the medical care of the sick poor. Their heightened profile prompted a petition to secure the monopoly of compounding and selling medicines for apothecaries, but the timing was not propitious (this was 1588—the year of the Spanish Armada). The conclusion of war with Spain, the accession to the throne of the amenable King James I, and the emergence of the royal apothecary Gideon de Laune provided more favourable circumstances, leading to the founding of the Society of Apothecaries in 1617. The 8 year old Gideon de Laune came to London with his family in 1573. They were Huguenot refugees who settled at Black Friars, within the precinct of the former Dominican Priory. Gideon's father was a physician but Gideon chose to practise as an apothecary from a shop at Black Friars, making his name and fortune from the manufacture of De Laune's …