Apothecary
Encyclopedia
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional
who formulates and dispenses materia medica
to physician
s, surgeons
and patient
s — a role now served by a pharmacist
(or a chemist
or dispensing chemist) and some caregivers.
In addition to pharmacy responsibilities, the apothecary offered general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by other specialist practitioners, such as surgery and midwifery
. Apothecaries often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco
and patent medicines.
In its investigation of herbal
and chemical ingredients, the work of an apothecary may be regarded as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry
and pharmacology
, prior to the formulation of the scientific method
.
According to Sharif Kaf al-Ghazal, Jolyn Carter, and S. Hadzovic, the first apothecary shops were founded during the Middle Ages
in Baghdad
. The first one was founded by Muslim pharmacists in 754, during the Abbasid Caliphate, or Islamic Golden Age
. Apothecaries were also active in Islamic Spain
by the 11th century.
By the end of the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer
(1342–1400) was mentioning an English apothecary in the Canterbury Tales, specifically "The Nun's Priest's Tale" as Pertelote speaks to Chauntecleer (lines 181–184):
By the 15th century, the apothecary gained the status of a skilled practitioner, but by the end of the 19th century, the medical professions had taken on their current institutional form, with defined roles for physicians and surgeons, and the role of the apothecary was more narrowly conceived as that of pharmacist (dispensing chemist in British English).
One famous mention of an apothecary appears in William Shakespeare
's play Romeo and Juliet
, in which a poor apothecary sells Romeo
an elixir of death with which Romeo commits suicide.
In England, the apothecaries merited their own livery company
, the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
, founded in 1617. Its roots, however, go back much earlier to the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
became the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain when she passed the Society's examination in 1865.
Apothecaries used their own measurement system, the apothecaries' system
, to provide precise weighing of small quantities. Apothecaries also were known to accept special requests for viles and poisons. This meaning of the term "apothecary" has not passed into archaic oblivion, as in William Faulkner
's still widely read 1930 story "A Rose for Emily
" the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, goes to an "apothecary" and buys arsenic
, ostensibly to kill a rat (which turns out later to have been her "Yankee
" boyfriend
who had apparently become bent on jilting her and casting her aside). Words which are cognate to apothecary have the meaning of "pharmacist
" or "dispensing chemist" in certain modern languages. In Swedish, for example, pharmacy is apotek and the pharmacist (dispensing chemist) is called apotekare. Very similar as well is the German
equivalent Apotheke (pharmacy) with the Apotheker being the pharmacist.
The Spanish
-derived word bodega
also has the same root.
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
who formulates and dispenses materia medica
Materia medica
Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...
to physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
s, surgeons
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
and patient
Patient
A patient is any recipient of healthcare services. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, advanced practice registered nurse, veterinarian, or other health care provider....
s — a role now served by a pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
(or a chemist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
or dispensing chemist) and some caregivers.
In addition to pharmacy responsibilities, the apothecary offered general medical advice and a range of services that are now performed solely by other specialist practitioners, such as surgery and midwifery
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
. Apothecaries often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
and patent medicines.
In its investigation of herbal
Herbalism
Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, herblore, and phytotherapy...
and chemical ingredients, the work of an apothecary may be regarded as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
, prior to the formulation of the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
.
History
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. The first one was founded by Muslim pharmacists in 754, during the Abbasid Caliphate, or Islamic Golden Age
Islamic Golden Age
During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
. Apothecaries were also active in Islamic Spain
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
by the 11th century.
By the end of the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
(1342–1400) was mentioning an English apothecary in the Canterbury Tales, specifically "The Nun's Priest's Tale" as Pertelote speaks to Chauntecleer (lines 181–184):
. . . for ye shal nat tarie,
Though in this toun is noon apothecarie,
I shal myself to herbes techen yow,
That shul been for youre hele and for youre prow.
. . . since you shouldn't tarry,
And in this town there's no apothecary,
I will myself go find some herbs for you
That will be good for health and pecker too.
By the 15th century, the apothecary gained the status of a skilled practitioner, but by the end of the 19th century, the medical professions had taken on their current institutional form, with defined roles for physicians and surgeons, and the role of the apothecary was more narrowly conceived as that of pharmacist (dispensing chemist in British English).
One famous mention of an apothecary appears in William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's play Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
, in which a poor apothecary sells Romeo
Romeo Montague
Romeo is one of the fictional protagonists in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Romeo is the son of old Montague and his wife, who secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet...
an elixir of death with which Romeo commits suicide.
In England, the apothecaries merited their own livery company
Livery Company
The Livery Companies are 108 trade associations in the City of London, almost all of which are known as the "Worshipful Company of" the relevant trade, craft or profession. The medieval Companies originally developed as guilds and were responsible for the regulation of their trades, controlling,...
, the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally, apothecaries were members of the Grocers' Company and before this members of the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180...
, founded in 1617. Its roots, however, go back much earlier to the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, LSA, MD , was an English physician and feminist, the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain and the first female mayor in England.-Early life:...
became the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain when she passed the Society's examination in 1865.
Apothecaries used their own measurement system, the apothecaries' system
Apothecaries' system
The apothecaries' system of weights is a historical system of mass units that were used by physicians and apothecaries for medical recipes, and also sometimes by scientists. The English version of the system is closely related with the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being...
, to provide precise weighing of small quantities. Apothecaries also were known to accept special requests for viles and poisons. This meaning of the term "apothecary" has not passed into archaic oblivion, as in William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
's still widely read 1930 story "A Rose for Emily
A Rose for Emily
"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forum. This story takes place in Faulkner's fictional city, Jefferson, Mississippi, in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha County...
" the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, goes to an "apothecary" and buys arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
, ostensibly to kill a rat (which turns out later to have been her "Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
" boyfriend
Boyfriend
A boyfriend is a person's regular male companion in a romantic or sexual relationship, although normally not in long-term committed relationships, where other titles A boyfriend is a person's regular male companion in a romantic or sexual relationship, although normally not in long-term committed...
who had apparently become bent on jilting her and casting her aside). Words which are cognate to apothecary have the meaning of "pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
" or "dispensing chemist" in certain modern languages. In Swedish, for example, pharmacy is apotek and the pharmacist (dispensing chemist) is called apotekare. Very similar as well is the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
equivalent Apotheke (pharmacy) with the Apotheker being the pharmacist.
The Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
-derived word bodega
Bodega
Bodega is a Spanish word that may refer to:* a winery, wine cellar or wine bar* a convenience store specializing in Hispanic groceriesPlaces:* Bodega, California, town in Sonoma County, California...
also has the same root.
Noted apothecaries
- James ParkinsonJames ParkinsonJames Parkinson was an English apothecary surgeon, geologist, paleontologist, and political activist. He is most famous for his 1817 work, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson's disease by...
- Dante AlighieriDante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
- Benedict ArnoldBenedict ArnoldBenedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...
- Silvanus BevanSilvanus BevanSilvanus Bevan was an apothecary, who founded the successful firm of Allen & Hanburys.He was born into a prosperous Welsh Quaker family. His father was also called Silvanus Bevan...
- Émile CouéÉmile CouéÉmile Coué de la Châtaigneraie was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion....
- Nicholas CulpeperNicholas CulpeperNicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer. His published books include The English Physician and the Complete Herbal , which contain a rich store of pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick ,...
- John KeatsJohn KeatsJohn Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
- NostradamusNostradamusMichel de Nostredame , usually Latinised to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties , the first edition of which appeared in 1555...
- John ParkinsonJohn Parkinson (botanist)John Parkinson was the last of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists. He was apothecary to James I and a founding member of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in December 1617, and was later Royal Botanist to Charles I...
- Joseph ProustJoseph ProustJoseph Louis Proust was a French chemist.-Life:Joseph L. Proust was born on September 26, 1754 in Angers, France. His father served as an apothecary in Angers. Joseph studied chemistry in his father’s shop and later came to Paris where he gained the appointment of apothecary in chief to the...
- Nicholas HughesNicholas HughesNicholas Farrar Hughes was a fisheries biologist known as an expert in stream salmonid ecology. Hughes was the son of the American poet Sylvia Plath and English poet Ted Hughes and the younger brother of English artist and poet Frieda Hughes...
See also
- CompoundingCompoundingCompounding is the mixing of drugs by a compounding pharmacist to fit the unique needs of a patient...
- Herb garden
- HerbalismHerbalismHerbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, herblore, and phytotherapy...
- History of pharmacyHistory of pharmacyThe history of pharmacy as an independent science is relatively young. The origins of historiography pharmaceutical back to the first third of the nineteenth century which is when the first historiographies that while not touching all aspects of pharmaceutical history is the starting point for the...
- Worshipful Society of ApothecariesWorshipful Society of ApothecariesThe Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally, apothecaries were members of the Grocers' Company and before this members of the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180...