Volume 1

Professional anecdotes, or ana of medical literature.

Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Professional anecdotes, or ana of medical literature. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tained, to oblige all future dispensing practition- ers to pay an apprentice-fee to some one in the profession, and a fine of six or ten guineas to the London Society of Apothecaries, previous to setting up in business! This Act was drawn up through the exertions of Mr, (now Dr.) Bur- rowes, who was then an apothecary, and who eventually obtained 500 guineas for his gratui- tous services in this affair. By this legislative act, and its consequences, the term empiric has acquired an extension of its signification; and will now, in future, con- tinue to be attached to all sellers of medicine, however learned or competent, who have not served this apprenticeship, or rather paid the fee, since the Society of Apothecaries do not seem to consider the instructions of the masters of any value; but insists that the candidates for licences should educate themselves by an at- tendance upon certain prescribed lectures in London. These different significations of the word em- piric should be carefully remembered; as it would be unjust to apply it at one time to a per- son who existed at another. This is more espe- cially requisite on reading the historians of me- dicine, who belong to the College, such as Brs, Cox, Goodall, and Merrett. They often represent- ed eminent practitioners as lewd or unlearned