DRUG STORE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 129, 3 June 1922, Page 10

DRUG STORE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

APOTHECARIES' HALL REVOLUTION.

Lovers of Old London will regret the f passing from the control of the Society of Apothecaries of the old chemist's shop in- Water-lane, near Ludgate Hill \ (oays a London paper). ' ,■ So long a notable part of the work in the Apothecaries' Hall, the retail business has been sold to Messrs. Cooper, Son, and Co., Ltd., who will dispense prescriptions and carry on the old busi- •! ness. • . Continuity of a long tradition is thus broken. For nearly 300 years the Society. of Apothecaries has dispensed drugs to the public. Drugs in the Middle Ages were sold by grocers and " pepperers," or by doctors themselves, who in the time of James I. formed one company with the apothecaries. • In 1670 the present building in Waterlane was erected as the dispensary and hall of the Company of Apothecaries; the earlier building of 1623 was destroyed by fire. Long before chemists' shops werdse't up in Fleet-street and the Strand, people flocked to the grey stone and brick building off Ludgate Hill to be cured by potions and physics. . Garth, in his'" Dispensary'," thus describes the topographical position of the Apothecaries' Hall: i _ Night where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams . . . To wash the scoty Naiads in-the Thames, There stands a structure on a rising hill Where tyros take their freedom but to kill. /■. ■■■:■■.. : ' The Society of Apothecaries will continue its work as a.livery company on the premises, • and examinations for qualifying dispensers will take place as formerly.