Numerous Acts of Parliament have been passed touching the medical profession since the days of “Bluff King Hal,” |11| one under James I. to prevent popish recusants practising physic, or using or exercising the trade or art of an apothecary; another under William and Mary for exempting apothecaries from serving as constables or scavengers; another for exempting spirits and spirituous liquours used by physicians, &c., in the preparation of medicine from duty, and others for purposes too numerous to mention. But it is the Medical Act of 1858, as amended by 22 Vict. cap. 21, that now governs the practitioners. In 1681, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, was incorporated and power was given of licensing practitioners and of preventing others practising. In Ireland, although the idea had been conceived many years before, it was not until 1654 that a body called “The President and Fraternity of Physicians” was founded; subsequently this company was incorporated and powers given to it very similar to those enjoyed by the London College. Under the Medical Act, Her Majesty was empowered to change the name of this institution (which had already enjoyed several aliases), to that of “The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.” In England and Ireland a third class of medical practitioners exists, namely, the apothecaries. Prior to the days of Henry VIII. an apothecary seems to have been the common name in England for a general practitioner in medicine. About that time shops began to be established for the exclusive sale of drugs and medicinal compounds, and those who kept these shops often took upon them to doctor their customers. In 1542 Henry’s parliament permitted any irregular practitioner to administer outward medicines, and these shopkeepers readily availed themselves of the permission granted by the Act and pushed the sale of their drugs and obtained larger prices on account of the advice they gave with them, and they appropriated exclusively the title of |12| apothecaries. In 1617 they were incorporated under the name of “The Master, Wardens and Society of the Art and Mystery of Apothecaries of the City of London.” About the beginning of the seventeenth century they began to prescribe as well as supply medicine; and although the College of Physicians resisted this poaching on what they considered their preserves, still early in the eighteenth century the matter was settled in favor of the apothecaries, since which time they have been legally recognised as a branch of the medical profession [5].