Baldwin Hamey, whose manuscript memoirs of eminent physicians are among the treasures of the College, praises Winston because he treated his apothecary as a master might a slave. "Heriliter imperavit," says the Doctor. The learned Thomas Winston, anatomy lecturer at Gresham College, lived to the age of eighty years, and died on the 24th of October, 1655. He knew, therefore, apothecaries in the day of their humility—before prosperity had encouraged them to compete with their professional superiors.
The apothecaries of the Elizabethan era compounded their medicines much as medicines are compounded at the present—as far as manipulation and measuring are concerned. Prescriptions have altered, but shop-customs have undergone only a very slight change. The apothecaries' table of weights and measures, still in use, was the rule in the sixteenth century, and the symbols (for a pound, an ounce, a drachm, a scruple, a grain, &c.) remain at this day just what they were three hundred years ago.
Our good friend, William Bulleyn, gave the following excellent rules for an apothecary's life and conduct:—
"THE APOTICARYE.
"1.—Must fyrst serve God, forsee the end, be clenly, pity the poore.
"2.—Must not be suborned for money to hurt mankynde.
"3.—His place of dwelling and shop to be clenly to please the sences withal.
"4.—His garden must be at hand with plenty of herbes, seedes, and rootes.
"5.—To sow, set, plant, gather, preserve and kepe them in due tyme.
"6.—To read Dioscorides, to know ye natures of plants and herbes.