In the course of the eighteenth century chemists and druggists had to a large extent replaced apothecaries as keepers of shops where medicines were sold and dispensed, and even when the businesses were owned by apothecaries, they usually styled themselves chemists and druggists. In the year 1841 an attempt was made to get a Bill through Parliament which would have made it penal to recommend any medicine for the sake of gain. The Bill was introduced by a Mr. Hawes, and the chemists and druggists of London opposed it with such vigour that it was ultimately withdrawn. In order to be prepared against future attacks the victorious chemists and druggists then formed the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, which was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1842. An Act protecting the title of pharmaceutical chemist was passed in 1852, and in 1868 another Act, requiring all future chemists and druggists to pass examinations and be registered, and restricting to them the sale of poisons, became law. IX MAGIC AND MEDICINE “Amulets and things to be borne about I find prescribed, taxed by some, approved by others. Look for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus, etc. A ring made with the hoof of an ass’s right forefoot, carried about, etc. I say, with Renodeus, they are not altogether to be rejected. Piony doth help epilepsies. Pretious stones most diseases. A wolf’s dung carried about helps the cholick. A spider an ague, etc. Such medicines are to be exploded that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatious proves, or the devil’s policy, that is the first founder and teacher of them.” BURTON: “Anatomy of Melancholy.” Charms, enchantments, amulets, incantations, talismans, phylacteries, and all the armoury of witchcraft and magic have been intimately mixed up with pharmacy and medicine in all countries and in all ages. The degradation of the Greek term pharmakeia from its original meaning of the art of preparing medicine to sorcery and poisoning is evidence of the prevalence of debasing superstitions in the practice of medicine among the cultivated Greeks. Hermes the Egyptian, Zoroaster the Persian, and Solomon the Hebrew were famous among the early practitioners and teachers of magic. These names served to conjure with. Those who bore them were probably wise men above the average who were above such tricks as were attributed to them. But it suited the purpose or the business of those who made their living out of the superstitions of the people to pretend to trace their practices to universally revered heroes of a dim past.