A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries: As well in Relation to Patients, as Physicians: And Of the

In Short

This polemical 1670 treatise exposes the widespread corruption within the apothecaries' trade in Restoration London. Author Christopher Merrett outlines how druggists adulterate precious ingredients, substitute cheap substitutes, inflate patient bills, and attempt to act as physicians without academic training. The text traces the breakdown of institutional oversight following the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Ultimately, it argues that the only viable solution is for licensed doctors to prepare their own medicines directly, bypassing corrupt tradesmen to protect public health, ensure fair pricing, and restore integrity to the medical profession.

The Story

The narrative opens with a detailed indictment of the physical frauds taking place inside London's apothecary shops. Druggists routinely bypass official inspections conducted by the College of Physicians, mixing grand official compounds with rotten or effete ingredients. They replace costly components like saffron, ambergris, and genuine pearls with cheap substitutes like turmeric, sanders, honey, and armenian bole. Even basic chemical oils are systematically adulterated with oil of turpentine or diluted with spirits. Practitioners go so far as to buy twenty-year-old seeds from merchants—seeds that have lost all vegetative and medicinal potency—simply because they are cheap.

Beyond physical tampering, the argument moves to the financial and clinical abuses inflicted directly on patients. Apothecaries deliberately expand prescriptions, turning twenty prescribed pills into thirty to charge a higher rate per unit. They gild pills with decorative gold leaf and load recipes with expensive-sounding ingredients like crushed pearls or bezoar stones to dramatically inflate their bills. Rather than sticking to dispensing, they frequently alter doctors' prescriptions, add their own speculative mixtures, and repeat lengthy, expensive courses of treatment long after a patient has recovered or when no medicine is required at all. These exorbitant charges deter sick people from seeking legitimate medical help, driving them toward uneducated mountebanks and street quacks.

The institutional conflict deepens as Merrett details the breakdown of regulatory order. Following the disruption of the Great Plague and the destruction of the College of Physicians in the Great Fire of London, apothecaries abandoned their mandatory professional examinations and open shop inspections. Instead of remaining subordinate assistants to university-trained doctors, they began acting as independent practitioners, claiming to diagnose illnesses, feeling patients' pulses, and openly arguing with physicians. They resort to theatrical marketing tactics—using bizarre pseudo-chemical jargon, claiming divine revelations, and hiring street scouts to tout fake cures.

In response to this systemic breakdown, the work presents its ultimate conclusion: physicians must take the preparation of medicines back into their own hands. By maintaining their own supply of pure remedies, doctors can drastically reduce the cost of healthcare, eliminate useless pompous ingredients like sapphires and emeralds, and protect patients from spoiled formulations. Despite the slanders, legal threats, and trade boycotts organized by the apothecaries' guild, the text concludes with a firm call for medical independence, asserting that direct preparation by doctors is the only way to advance medical science and preserve human life.

How It Unfolds

The adulteration of drugs Apothecaries routinely buy decayed ingredients from druggists, substitute cheap honey and turmeric for costly saffron, and adulterate expensive chemical oils with turpentine.

Financial exploitation of patients Druggists stretch prescriptions by dividing pills into smaller units to charge higher fees, adding unnecessary gold leaf, and inserting costly ingredients to inflate final bills.

Decay of institutional oversight Following the Great Fire of London, mandatory examinations of apothecary apprentices cease, allowing uninspected tradesmen to set up shops and neglect official search inspections.

Intrusion into medical practice Apothecaries begin visiting the sick independently, contradicting doctors' orders, altering prescriptions, and using absurd pseudo-scientific jargon to convince the public of their expertise.

The call for self-dispensing Physicians are urged to reclaim the preparation of remedies, eliminating useless luxury ingredients to provide cheaper, purer, and far more reliable treatments directly to their patients.

Resistance from the trade The apothecary guild responds with public slander, trade boycotts, and legal threats against self-dispensing doctors, demonstrating that they prioritize commercial profit over patient safety.

The People

• Christopher Merrett: A physician, Fellow of the Royal Society, and former Censor of the College of Physicians. He wants to reform the medical profession, eradicate fraudulent drug preparations, and restore the authority of university-trained doctors by convincing them to make their own medicines.
• The Apothecaries: The city's druggists and shopkeepers. They seek maximum commercial profit, independence from physician oversight, and the right to practice medicine directly, which leads them to adulterate remedies, overcharge patients, and oppose institutional inspections.
• The College Censors: Medical officials appointed to inspect shops and examine apprentices. Discouraged by the sheer volume of street quacks, personal financial costs, and the destruction of their headquarters in the Great Fire, they struggle to enforce traditional standards.
• The Patients: The sick public of London. They seek affordable, effective relief from illnesses but end up financially exploited, confused by technical jargon, and physically endangered by spoiled or tampered medicines.

In Its Own Voice

"It being a common trade with them to buy unsound, and decayed Simples of some Druggists, and to return them back so much of the composition as will pay for the Simples."

Context: Merrett explains how shopkeepers systematically compromise official remedies by incorporating cheap, spoiled raw ingredients into major medicinal compounds.

"Apothecaries being now Competitors with Physicians for practice, and down-right Enemies to such as make their own Medicines..."

Context: The author describes the breakdown of professional boundaries as tradesmen transition from preparing prescriptions to competing directly with doctors for patients.

"...for from the Physician alone the advancement of Physic is to be expected."

Context: Merrett argues that true medical progress relies on educated practitioners who observe the genuine effects of pure remedies rather than profit-driven shopkeepers.

What It's Really About

The work tackles the sharp conflict between commercial profit and professional ethics in early modern healthcare. At its core, the text questions who has the moral and intellectual authority to treat the human body: university-educated scholars dedicated to empirical science or trade-monopolists driven by retail margins. It examines how unregulated markets lead to consumer deception, where patients are easily misled by Latinate jargon, expensive packaging, and false promises. By documenting the breakdown of civic oversight after urban catastrophes like the Great Fire of London, the text highlights the fragile nature of regulatory institutions and argues that patient safety requires absolute transparency in the preparation of life-saving treatments.

Why Read It Today

This text appeals to readers fascinated by the history of medicine, consumer protection, and 17th-century London life. It reads like an urgent, investigative exposé, offering a remarkably vivid look at early modern apothecary shops, complete with adulterated oils, dried sun-beam pills, and gold-leafed nostrums.

The prose is sharp, aggressive, and grounded in real-world observations, though readers must navigate 17th-century capitalizations, archaic spellings, and dense references to ancient compounds like Mithridate and Diascordium. Its lasting intrigue lies in how modern its core grievances feel: the tension between pharmaceutical markup and patient access, the struggle over professional scope, and the timeless problem of health fraud.