The last of the royal edicts applying to pharmacy was issued in 1777 by Louis XVI, and, as already stated, this was the authority which finally separated the apothecaries from the grocers. Then came the Revolution, and in 1791 all restrictions on trades or professions, including pharmacy, were abolished. Some accidents having occurred, the Assembly passed an ordinance on April 14, 1791, declaring that the old laws, statutes, and regulations governing the teaching and practice of pharmacy should remain in force until a new code should be framed. This did not appear until April, 1803, under Napoleon’s Consulate, and the law, which is still in force, is to this day cited in legal proceedings as the law of Germinal, year XI. VIII PHARMACY IN GREAT BRITAIN. For none but a clever dialectician Can hope to become a great physician: That has been settled long ago. Logic makes an important part Of the mystery of the healing art; For without it how could you hope to show That nobody knows so much as you know. --LONGFELLOW: “Golden Legend.” BRITISH PHARMACY IN SAXON ENGLAND. The condition of medicine and pharmacy in Saxon times has been carefully portrayed in three volumes published, in 1864, under the authority of the Master of the Rolls at the expense of the Treasury. These were edited by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne, M.A., and appeared under the title of “Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft.” Many old documents were translated and explained, and from these the ideas of medicine in these islands a thousand years ago were made manifest. Mr. Cockayne gave at length a Saxon Herbarium, written, he supposed, about the year 1000, and professing to be a translation from Apuleius, a Roman physician of the second century, with additions from Dioscorides, and some from native science. A few specimens will suffice to show the character of the herb treatment in England before the Conquest. CRESS, WATERCRESS (Nasturtium officinale). 1. This wort is not sown, but it is produced of itself in wylls (springs), and in brooks, also it is written that in some lands it will grow against walls. 2. In the case that a man’s hair fall off take juice of the wort which one nameth nasturtium, and by another name cress; put it on the nose; the hair shall wax (grow). 3. For sore of head, that is for scurf and for itch, take seed of this same wort and goose grease. Pound together. It draws from the head the whiteness of the scurf. 4. For soreness of the body (the Latin word is ad cruditatem, indigestion) take this same wort nasturtium, and pennyroyal; seethe them in water, give to drink; then amendest thou the soreness of the body, and the evil departs. 5. Against swellings, take this same wort, and pound it with oil; lay over the swellings; then take leaves of the same wort, and lay them thereto.