Williamsburg [he wrote] is but a small Village containing not more than 60 families, at most; and in and about this City are no less than 25 or 30 phisitians, and of that number not above 2 capable of living handsomly. So that I did not think it proper to stay, in a place where so many of my profession are lickely to starve. Little is known about any of these “phisitians,” not even the names of most. It seems fairly sure, however, that a number were quacks. Gooch had complained in the same letter about the “unskilfulness of practioners in this country” but was gullible enough himself to pay 60 pounds from public funds and give freedom to a Negro slave for the secret of the latter’s alleged cure of venereal diseases. It turned out to be a decoction of roots and barks, which the Governor avowed to be “a certain Remedy here” and sent samples so the College of Physicians could try its effect in England. Most of Gooch’s abundant physicians almost certainly made up their own prescriptions. From 1622 at Jamestown until 1731 in Williamsburg no mention of an apothecary in Virginia has been found in historical records. In the latter year, however, there were four shops purveying drugs and compounding medicines in Williamsburg. The proprietors of two were doctors—Dr. George Gilmer and Dr. Kenneth McKenzie; the other two were druggists or “chymists”—Thomas Wharton and Thomas Goodwin. Goodwin did not remain independent long. After about two years he joined Dr. Robert Davidson, mayor of Williamsburg, in a partnership that was itself dissolved in two years by the death of Dr. Davidson. Thomas Wharton, on the other hand, kept shop in Williamsburg for some eleven years. He had arrived in Virginia about 1703 as an indentured servant to a Dr. Richard Wright and had acquired by the time of his death in 1746 not only a pharmaceutical business, but the title of “Doctor.” He willed his drugs, medicines, and shop utensils to Dr. McKenzie. _SHOPKEEPER EXTRAORDINARY_ The fourth named practicer, George Gilmer, Sr., deserves extended attention. He comes as close as any one person to being a typical Williamsburg apothecary-surgeon-physician of his time, though his extramedical career was far from typical. Born in Edinburgh in 1700, Gilmer studied medicine there, then practiced with one of London’s leading doctors, whose daughter he married. Possibly the death of his young wife moved him to ship for America; at the age of 31 he arrived in Virginia to practice medicine and manage the affairs of a land company. He married again and must have prospered, because in four years’ time he was able to purchase for £155 three choice lots near the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg.