Of English apothecaries I know nothing more than what has been stated by Anderson[1022], who says that king Edward III., in the year 1345, gave a pension of sixpence a day to Coursus de Gangeland, an apothecary of London, for taking care of and attending his majesty during his illness in Scotland; and this is the first mention of an apothecary in the Fœdera.
Of apothecaries in France no mention occurs before the year 1484; when they received their statutes in the month of August from Charles VIII.[1023] They received others in 1514 under Louis XII.; in 1516 and 1520 under Francis I.; in 1571 under Charles IX.; in 1583 under Henry III.; and in 1594 under Henry IV. These regulations were renewed and confirmed by Louis XIII., in the years 1611, 1624, and 1638.
For the most copious information respecting German apothecaries, we are indebted to Sattler. In the beginning of the fifteenth century an apothecary’s shop was established at Stuttgard by a person named Glatz, which, as the only one in the country, was first sanctioned by the count of Wirtemberg in 1458. In the patent given on that occasion it was said that Glatz’s ancestors had for many years kept an apothecary’s shop at Stuttgard, and had furnished it as a proper apothecary ought. In the year 1457 count Ulric gave to John Kettner, whom the year before he had appointed to be his domestic physician, leave also to establish an apothecary’s shop at Stuttgard, and promised to allow no other in his dominions. The apothecary received yearly from the count a certain quantity of wine, barley and rye; but, on the other hand, he engaged to supply the court with as much confectionary as might be necessary, at the rate of twelve schillings per pound[1024]. Both these shops seem afterwards to have been abandoned, and the count and the apothecary to have entertained the same opinion, that each could renounce his contract when he pleased. In the year 1468, one Albrecht Mulsteiner, or Altumsteiner, from Nuremberg, was appointed apothecary, with a promise that no other private or public shop should be tolerated except that at Wirtemberg. The patent is almost like that given to Kettner; but it deserves to be remarked that it contains, in an additional clause, a catalogue of all the different articles, with their prices. An apothecary’s shop is mentioned at Tubingen, under count Everhard, as an hereditary fief, the possessor of which bound himself to serve as physician and apothecary to the army in time of war. In the year 1500 duke Ulric of Wirtemberg allowed one Syriax Horn to establish an apothecary’s shop at Stuttgard, and appointed him his apothecary for six years. He was obliged to swear that he would supply government and all public officers, as well as the duke’s subjects, with medicines; and the body physician was enjoined to visit the shop once every year, in order to examine whether Horn conducted himself according to the regulations laid down for him, and sold his medicines at the fixed prices. In 1559 four apothecaries were appointed in the duchy, viz. at Stuttgard, Goppingen, Kalw and Bintigheim, which are still called the land-apothecaries. At the same period there was an apothecary’s shop in the ducal palace at Stuttgard, which the consort of duke Christopher caused to be furnished at her own expense; and from which the poor received gratis whatever medicines they stood in need of.
That there were apothecaries’ shops at Augsburg so early as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, according to the conjecture of Von Stetten, has been mentioned already. By the records of that city it appears that a public shop was kept there by a female apothecary in the year 1445; and at that period a salary was paid by the city to the person who followed that occupation. In 1507 an order was passed that the apothecaries’ shops should be from time to time inspected; and in 1512 a price was set upon their medicines, and all others were forbidden to deal in them.
The antiquity of the first apothecary’s shop at Hamburg, which belonged to the council, cannot be determined; but it is with certainty known that one existed there before the sixteenth century. It was situated in the middle of the city, near the council-house and the exchange; and had a garden belonging to it, in the new town. Before the year 1618 there was at Hamburg also a private apothecary’s shop. In 1529 a city physician was appointed, and quacks and mountebanks were then banished. The annual visitation by the city physician was established in 1557. The oldest regulation respecting apothecaries is of the year 1586.
Apothecaries’ shops, legally established, existed without doubt at Frankfort on the Maine before the year 1472; for at that period the magistrates of Constance requested to know what regulations were made there respecting the prices of medicines. In 1489 the city physician was instructed to inspect them carefully, and to see that the proper prices were affixed to the different articles. In 1500 all the apothecaries were obliged to take an oath that they would observe the regulations prescribed for them; and in 1603 a decree was passed that no more apothecaries’ shops should be allowed for twelve years than the four then existing; and yet we are told that the fourth was first built in 1629[1025].
In the police regulations drawn up at Basle in the year 1440, by which it was ordered that a public physician should be established in every German imperial city, with the allowance of an ecclesiastical benefice or canonry, in order that he might exercise his art gratis, it is said, “What costly things people may wish to have from the apothecary’s shop they must pay for[1026].” Dr. Mohsen hence concludes that common roots and herbs were not then sold in the apothecaries’ shops, but expensive compounds brought from other countries.
The first apothecary’s shop at Berlin, of which any certain and authentic account can be found in the king’s feudal records, was established in 1488. At that period the magistrates gave one Hans Zehender a right to the hereditary possession of a shop, and promised to allow him yearly, to enable him to support it, a certain quantity of rye, with a free house, and engaged also to exempt him from all contributions, watching and other public burthens, and to permit no other apothecary to reside in the city. This agreement was confirmed in 1491 by the elector John; and in 1499 the elector Joachim I., on his coming to the government, gave the apothecary a new patent, in which his body physician was charged to take care that the shop should be furnished with proper drugs; that the medicines for the elector and his court should be made up according to the prescriptions; and that they should not be charged too high, contrary to the regulated prices[1027]. In the year 1573 there was an apothecary’s shop in the palace for the use of the court; but Mr. Nicolai[1028] conjectures that it was only a portable one, and consisted of some chests filled with medicines. The present one was founded in 1598 by Catharine, consort of the elector Joachim Frederick; but the establishment, as it now stands, began to be formed in the year 1605, when Crispin Haubenschmid, the first apothecary to the court, was brought from Halle to Berlin. Catharine, widow of the margrave John of Custrin, caused an apothecary’s shop for the use of the court to be established at Krossen, under the inspection of her physician Wigands, because there was then no shop of that kind in the place; and at her death in 1574 she bequeathed it to the magistrates.
In Halle there was no apothecary’s shop till the year 1493. Before that period medicines were sold only by grocers and barbers. In the above year however the council, with the approbation of the archbishop, permitted one Simon Puster to establish an apothecary’s shop, in order, as stated in the patent, that the citizens might be supplied with confections, cooling liquors, and such like common things, at a cheap rate, and that, in cases of sickness, they might be able to procure readily fresh and well-prepared medicines. Puster was exempted by it from all taxes and contributions for ten years, but with this proviso, that during that period he should furnish yearly at the council-house for two collations in the time of the festivals, eight pounds of good sugar confections, fit and proper to be used at such entertainments. It stated, on the other hand, that in future no kind of preserves made with sugar, or what was called confectionary, or theriac, should be kept for sale or sold either in the market or in booths, shops or stalls, except at the annual fair. This apothecary’s shop was the only one in Halle till the year 1535, when the archbishop gave his physician, J. N. von Wyhe, liberty to establish a new one; but with an assurance, that to eternity, no more apothecaries’ shops should be permitted in Halle; and this declaration was confirmed by the chapter. Notwithstanding the archbishop’s promise, strengthened by that of his clergy, one Wolf Holzwirth, a skilful apothecary, who returned from Italy, found means to procure permission in 1555 to establish a third apothecary’s shop[1029].
In the year 1409, when the university of Prague was transferred to Leipsic, and every thing at the latter was put on the same footing as at the former, an apothecary’s shop was also established, which, as that at Prague had been, was known by the sign of the Golden Lion.