The apothecaries' act, 1815: a reinterpretation. II. The consequences of the act.

THE Apothecaries' Act of 1815 bore the unmistakable marks of its origin.' Based on James I's charter to the Apothecaries' Company, it drew heavily upon sixteenth and seventeenth century precedents both in phraseology and in ideology. Permeated by the influence of the College of Physicians, the Act has a closer affinity to a Stuart patent of monopoly than to a statute in the age of 'laissez-faire'. The avowed purpose of the Act was to ensure the better regulation of apothecaries throughout England and Wales by placing them under the supervision of the London Society of Apothecaries: its real function, however, was to maintain the ancient hierarchical structure of the medical profession and the apothecary's inferior status within it. Although the Apothecaries' Company sponsored the bill, and stood to gain most from its enactment, the Company was taken by surprise at the great augmentation of its powers. 'They had not prepared their minds', observed George Mann Burrows in 1834, 'for the extensive privileges which that Act gave them'.2 Few people, indeed, appear to have been aware of the real significance of the statute. It contained several obscure and loosely drawn clauses, the meaning of which only became clear after half-acentury of legal decisions. Although the Act purported to be concerned with the regulation of the practice of apothecaries, it contained no clear definition of their functions and duties. Yet such a definition was essential to the enforcement of the Act. Unless it was known what constituted practising as an apothecary it would be impossible to initiate proceedings against the unqualified. Moreover, those practitioners who were able to prove that they had acted as apothecaries on 1 August 1815 were exempt from the operation of the penal clauses of the statute. But what was an apothecary? What were his duties and functions? These crucial questions were left to be answered by the Law Courts. The only guidance that the Apothecaries' Act itself gave on this vital problem was contained in the fifth clause, a clause which had been inserted at the express command of the College of Physicians. This section stated that 'it is the duty of every person using or exercising the art and mystery of an apothecary to prepare with exactness and to dispense such medicines as may be directed for the sick by any physician lawfully licensed'." The Lancet, in 1826, argued that since the 1815 Act defined the apothecary as 'a mere retailer of simples, and the unpaid compounder of physician's