Apothecaries, Dispensers, Students and Nineteenth-century Pharmacy at St. George's Hospital, London.

THE nineteenth-century transition from apothecaries to dispensers in hospital pharmacy was not always so clear cut as that indicated in the general view of its occurrence, whereby the apothecary became resident medical officer, around the I 85os, and thus vacated a post to be filled from the ranks ofchemists and druggists. This article shows that at St. George's Hospital, the changeover formed part of a long complex chapter in voluntary hospital organization and administration. Though the increasing importance of the apothecary as a general practitioner in British medicine' undoubtedly had an important influence, it was but a backcloth to the more tangible internal considerations of financing expanding departments, notably the out-patient department and to the Board's earnest desire to maintain an efficient pharmaceutical service.2 It was this, as will be seen, coupled with the early introduction of dispensers in place of apprentices and medical school pupils that led to a cautious transference of duties from the highly paid, medically qualified apothecary to the lower salaried dispenser and to the house physician-a valuable financial saving to the hospital. In addition, the dichotomy in the apothecary's duties-on the one hand medical and administrative and on the other pharmaceutical-was amenable to the creation ofhouse medical staffand dispensers. This dichotomy had always been a feature of the apothecary's duties,3 but became more pronounced in the nineteenth century. In i8io the twofold nature of the work was pin-pointed by apothecary Prosser's difficulty in pursuing both with an equal enthusiasm: