On the new pharmacopoeia : with some preliminary considerations on the past and future condition of British pharmacy / T. Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the new pharmacopoeia : with some preliminary considerations on the past and future condition of British pharmacy / T. Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    I.ondon the educational control of the entire body of General Practitioners in England—men who are virtujilly the physicians of the English people. In Scotland, the opposite result took place. Cullen, and the first Munro, joined the College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1756, and, in a few years after, united with Drs. Thomas Young, Ramsay, John Gregory, Joseph Black, and James Hay, in an oppo- sition to the exclusive regulations of the College. The contest was carried on, for many successive years, with varying and alternate success, until, in 1788 (when Dr. Hay was President), the liberal party was finally victorious ; and, on the proposition of Dr. Cullen, the late learned and accomplished Dr. Charles Stuart, who hitherto had been debarred admission by the operation of the exclusive law, was admitted a Fellow. Since this date, no restrictions have been placed on the practice of the Edinburgh Fellows.* Perhaps it is to this step more than to any other that we owe the high develop- ment of pharmaceutical science, and that general separation of it from the practice of medicine in Edinburgh, which the advocates of the exclusive laws referred to, really so much desired. For, by breaking down the wholly conventional line of demarcation which was drawn between the practice of physic and of surgery and midwifery, the physicians became dangerous rivals of the surgeon-apothecaries for the general practice amongst the middle classes, and the latter were thus gradually led to assimilate themselves more closely to the physicians in titles, education, and mode of business, and more especially to dispense with the shop as apothecaries. Thus it has happened that in Edinburgh, not only is pharmacy separated from practice, to the great advantage of pharmaceutical science,- but the standard of education and the social position of the general practitioner has been also raised. Looking at the probable working of the new medical bill, I confidently hope that a change equally advantageous to pharmaceutical science and to the medical profession will take place rapidly in England. The recent enactment places our Scottish gradu- ates in such a position, that henceforth they may legally practise any or all the depart- ments of practice in which they are educated. It may be true that without the apothe- caries’licence they cannot charge for the mere drugs supplied to patients; but as they can recover reasonable charges for attendance on those to whom the drugs are supplied, this is not a heavy grievance ; indeed, perhaps it would be rather advantageous than otherwise, for such disqualification would only hasten the extinction of the race of apothecaries, and develop a more able class of physician-surgeons, who will look to the chemist to supply his medicinal agents in the mode most convenient and advan- tageous both to patient and practitioner. Further, it is said that the College of Physicians of London is at last being actuated by the same liberal principles which were introduced into the Edinburgh College a century ago by Cullen and the first Munro. If this be the fact, and those principles take effect as they ought, it cannot be doubted that the influence on Pharmaceutical Chemistry will be great. For the College of Physicians has powers over England (perhaps throughout the empire) pos- sessed by no other medical corporation, and may, if it wields them in a liberal spirit and with a wise vigour, both rival the Colleges of Surgeons, and draw to itself all the influence of the Society of Apothecaries, and so replace it as the centre and life of the great body of physician-surgeons of England. That would be a remarkable turn in medical politics, for under such circumstances the Society of Apothecaries of London and your own Pharmaceutical Society would soon be in a position to amal- gamate, and thus Pharmaceutical science itself would receive a new and vigorous development. In thus predicting and hoping for the separation of practical pharmacy from medical art, and a return to the unity of medicine, I would wish to be clearly un- derstood as in no degree disparaging the dignity of pharmacy or the value of phar- maceutical knowledge to the practitioner. On the contrary, I hold that that knowledge is a most essential element of medical art, and that no physician is complete without it. It is his lot to be opifer per orbem, a truly catholic and universal helper, and although in a large town he may indulge in all the appliances and means which a division of labour supplies, he sliould nevertheless be qualified to act as herbalist, chem.ist, cupper, nurse, and doctor at once. His duties may unavoidably be those of the Man of Ross:— * Address delivered at the opening of the New Hall of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgli, Nov. 27tli, 1816, by William Beilby, President.