A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

to the National Insurance Act. Lloyd George offered to pay them an annual
fee of seven shilling in respect of each patient on their panel (plus the six
pence allocated for additional drugs, should they not be needed to treat the
patient). 115 This was sufficient to persuade them to turn their backs on
dispensing and allow it to be assigned to the pharmacists. In doing so they
raised their status to the level of a physician and reduced that of their
assistants to the level of chemist‘s assistant.
The apothecaries were aware that the assistants had enjoyed a
statutory right to exist for over 100 years. But in a memorandum in 1913,
they accepted the view expressed by the Pharmaceutical Society, that the
assistant‘s qualification had become redundant. However, they were also
aware that were the assistant‘s examination to be discontinued, the Society
of Apothecaries would suffer a considerable loss of revenue. 116 Table 4 in
appendix 7 shows a comparison of the examination fees paid by the
assistants and the apothecaries in relation to their respective qualifying
examinations. It can be seen that the assistants contributed, on average,
over half of the Society‘s income from examination fees. As doctors gave up
dispensing under the 1911 Act, the number of candidates applying for the
assistant‘s certificate could be expected to decline, with a consequent loss of
income. 117
115
Carr-Saunders and Wilson, The Professions, p.94 and „The Doctors‟ Decision‟, The Times, 20 Nov.
1912, p. 9.
116
Society of Apothecaries Archive, Box 9, E/4/4/1/1, Memorandum, „The Society of Apothecaries and
the Pharmaceutical Society‟, 1913.
117
Society of Apothecaries Archive, Box 11, E/4/4/2/8, „Resolution from the Annual General Meeting of
the Association of Certified Dispensers‟, 29 May 1919.
324