APOTHECARY

APOTHECARY, a Person who practices Pharmacy, or that part of Physics which consists in the Preparation and Composition of Medicines.
See PHARMACY and MEDICINE.

Nicholas Langius has written a large Volume expressly against the Apothecaries, their errors in pro quos in the Materia Medica, and suffering themselves to be so easily imposed on by foreign Merchants, Druggists, etc., who deal with adulterated Drugs, one sort for another, old, Effete, exhausted ones, for new ones just imported from the Levant, etc. See DRUGS, QUID PRO QUO, etc. The Apothecaries in England are obliged to make up their Medicines, according to the Formulas prescribed in the College Dispensatory. See DISPENSATORY, OFFICIAL, etc. Their Shops are subject to the Visitation of the Censors of the College; who are empowered to destroy such Medicines as they think good. See CENSOR.



Bartholin complains of the too great number of Apothecaries in Denmark; though there were but three in Copenhagen, and four in all the Kingdom besides: What would he have said of London, where there are upwards of 1300?The Word is derived from the Greek ἀποθήκη (apothēkē), Shop, by way of Eminence.

APOTHECARY