The apothecaries of the Elizabethan era compounded their medicines much as medicines are compounded at the present--as far as manipulation and measuring are concerned. Prescriptions have altered, but shop-customs have undergone only a very slight change. The apothecaries' table of weights and measures, still in use, was the rule in the sixteenth century, and the symbols (for a pound, an ounce, a drachm, a scruple, a grain, &c.) remain at this day just what they were three hundred years ago. Our good friend, William Bulleyn, gave the following excellent rules for an apothecary's life and conduct:-- "THE APOTICARYE. "1.--Must fyrst serve God, forsee the end, be clenly, pity the poore. "2.--Must not be suborned for money to hurt mankynde. "3.--His place of dwelling and shop to be clenly to please the sences withal. "4.--His garden must be at hand with plenty of herbes, seedes, and rootes. "5.--To sow, set, plant, gather, preserve and kepe them in due tyme. "6.--To read Dioscorides, to know ye natures of plants and herbes. "7.--To invent medicines to chose by coloure, tast, odour, figure, &c. "8.--To have his morters, stilles, pottes, filters, glasses, boxes, cleane and sweete. "9.--To have charcoals at hand, to make decoctions, syrupes, &c. "10.--To kepe his cleane ware closse, and cast away the baggage. "11.--To have two places in his shop--one most cleane for the phisik, and a baser place for the chirurgie stuff. "12.--That he neither increase nor diminish the physician's bill (_i. e._ prescription), and kepe it for his own discharge. "13.--That he neither buy nor sel rotten drugges. "14.--That he peruse often his wares, that they corrupt not. "15.--That he put not in _quid pro quo_ (_i. e._, use one ingredient in the place of another, when dispensing a physician's prescription) without advysement. "16.--That he may open wel a vein for to helpe pleuresy. "17.--That he meddle only in his vocation. "18.--That he delyte to reede Nicolaus Myrepsus, Valerius Cordus, Johannes Placaton, the Lubik, &c. "19.--That he do remember his office is only to be ye physician's cooke. "20.--That he use true measure and waight. "21.--To remember his end, and the judgment of God: and thus I do commend him to God, if he be not covetous, or crafty, seeking his own lucre before other men's help, succour, and comfort."