The Royal Apothecaries

there are already good studies ofparticular crises like that of 1557-1559,21 ofparticular regions like the West Riding,23 the Vale of Trent,", the Lake District" and the area around Bromsgrove47 which can all be used as a basis for further work. These studies incidentally all serve to show that Creighton's descriptions based on mainly literary evidence are not very useful for plotting the course or estimating the impact of epidemics of the past; and it is something of a paradox that many medical writers seem to prefer to rely on his sort of literary record as a basis for 'historical armchair diagnosis', whereas social historians, realizing the limitations of documentary evidence on such matters, seem more ready to seek analogies from modem scientific medicine. It is surely safer to look first to modem work on rural diets" and pellagra9 in remote parts of Yugoslavia and U.S.A., or on the conservation of plague in a foyer such as Iran,50 rather than to Creighton's selective descriptions of the larders of manorial lords and medieval burial practices. A combination of such medicalfacts with demographic studies will soon show what is of value in traditional sorts of evidence, and that will then facilitate rather than impede a better understanding of the role played by disease in our social history.La conservation de la peste en foyer inv6t6r6' Medecine et Hygiene, 1964, 22, 172-74. The present author hopes soon to publish a study of the history of plague along these lines. This scholarly book provides the first complete account of the pharmaceutical and medical practitioners who, under the names of spicer or apothecary, have provided an essential service for the kings and queens of England from the early thirteenth century to the present time. The duties have changed considerably during the centuries and the later royal apothecaries would probably have raised their eyebrows if asked to provide coloured wax for the royal seals, spiced wines for court festivals, perfumes to 'ayer the grete chamber', urinals for the use of Privy Councellors, or to embalm their late masters. The above list by no means exhausts the variety of non-medical duties undertaken. One of the author's few omissions seems to be the fact that William de Stanes, apothecary to Edward III, supplied materials for some of the earliest gunpowder used in warfare and himself served in the French Wars. The short but valuable introduction shows that royal apothecaries were …