AN APOTHECARY.
From an engraving, 1517.
The worthy doctor begins by recommending people to prepare their medicine at their own homes, it being a far safer and easier way than sending it to the apothecary to be made, and as a further inducement states: “And you shall also save nineteen shillings in twenty shillings, according to the extravagant rates charged by many apothecaries, in so doing. I must tell you, I have oft seen bills of apothecaries rise to twenty, and sometimes thirty pounds in the time of a fortnight; and what is more, I have known an apothecary’s bill so extravagant that the sum at the bottom of his account amounted to fifty pounds in the space of thirty days, when the ingredients of the whole course could not be computed to stand him in forty shillings.” A severe indictment indeed.
The doctor then goes on to inform us that “in preparing medicines at home you may be certain the ingredients are sound and fresh, and you can have your medicines without attending the apothecary’s leisure or having the trouble of sending three or four times to his shop for them; and, most important of all, you may be assured in so doing you shall save nine pounds in ten, and sometimes forty-eight pounds in fifty”.
Another treatise written to denounce the excessive charges of the apothecaries was The Accomplished Physician, the Honest Apothecary, and the Skilful Surgeon, published and sold at the “Angel” in Duck Lane, in 1656. It attacked the unfortunate apothecary on all sides. It states that “if the apothecary finds you costive he sends you a clyster, at the price of half a crown, which by consulting The Accomplished Physician, etc., you may learn how to make yourself for three half-pence. If he apprehends your stomach to be oppressed, he orders his man to boil a little cardamoms in water, strain it, and put to it three or four spoonsful of rank oil of sweet almonds, to cause you to vomit and carry off a little phlegm, and for this he charges you half a crown, which you can make yourself for two-pence.”
The author finally confides to the public “that it is fortunate that the little apothecaries and prescribing surgeons have not much knowledge of the great medicines, such as mercury and antimony, as they would at most times do great mischief with them, using them at unseemly times, as if you laid hold of a club to knock down a louse; such great medicines should only be used by the physicians, who should reserve them in secret”.
Most of the herbs and roots in common use were brought to the town markets and vended by the physical herb-women, who would bring them in baskets to Newgate Market, Gutter Lane, or Covent Garden, and there sell them by the handful, a dozen for a groat. The measures in use were of a very primitive description, chiefly the fascicle and the pugil.
In 1656 a quart white glass bottle cost 1s. 6d., and a green glass retort 8d. Plague water at certain times was in great demand, and was usually sold at the apothecaries for 3s. 6d. a pint. The price of most conserves was 2d. an ounce, and ointments retailed at 8d. an ounce. An ointment that was much in vogue and very popular among the people was Unguentum Ægyptiacum, similar to the ointment of the great Felix Wurtz. Its composition is somewhat interesting and quaint. “Take of verdigriese 12 drachms ground very fine in a brass mortar, observing while you are powdering to hold your head back from the mortar and keep your mouth and nose stopped, to prevent those venomous steams from getting up into your brain. Then take 3 ounces of honey and 12 drachms of sharpest vinegar, place them in a broad brass pipkin, put in the verdigriese, stir and boil them on a gentle fire unto the thickness of an oyntment of a purple colour.” Of the waters in common use the Accomplished Physician gives directions for the preparation of several. The London treacle water, aqua mirabilis and aqua raphani composita, were noted for scurvy. The London snail water was recommended as an invaluable remedy in consumption, which, “owing to the cool, clammy, and glutinous substance of the snail, facilitated the expectoration and repaired the parts consumed”. Gascon’s powder, or pulvis é chelis cancrorum, was regarded as a valuable medicament, and much esteemed and ordered by the great physicians. It was an expensive mixture, and contained equal parts, in powder, of crab’s eyes, the oriental pearl, red coral, white amber, oriental bezoar, and the black tops of crab’s claws. It was sometimes ordered and taken in the form of pills mixed with hartshorn jelly. The apothecary’s price for this powder was 40s. an ounce, or one penny per grain. We are told that if made at home the cost would only be 13s. 11∕4d. Another preparation exceedingly popular in the seventeenth century was the emplastrum opodeldock of Feliz Wurtz, “so much cried up among surgeons beyond the sea”. It was a red plaster, composed of wax, Venice turpentine, juice of celandine, oak leaves, ammoniacum, galbanum, and vinegar. Then some powdered magnets, and such mysterious compounds as Crocus Martis, Crocus Veneris, and prepared tutria, were thrown in, and all boiled together. The following is extracted from an old price list of the seventeenth century, which gives a good idea of some of the extraordinary articles kept in the old apothecaries’ shops, and the prices charged. It is headed “Rates and prices currant of Druggs and other commodities, belonging to physick, as they are commonly sold at the Apothecaries and Druggists in London, 1685”:—