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

employed by the navy were taken from the ranks of apothecaries‘ assistants;
for if the Commissioners had wished to employ apothecaries, be they
masters or journeymen, they would surely have said so. It would seem then
that Messrs. Blakey, Shannon, Cornwall and Shapcote were not licentiates,
but came from a less highly qualified group and were being examined by the
Society of Apothecaries in respect of their skill as dispensers: they were
what, in 1815, would be described as apothecaries‘ assistants.
Lloyd and Coulter assist in making sense of this confusion by saying
that, ―In the eighteenth century it is difficult to distinguish between the
apothecary and the dispenser‖ in the civilian sector. While in the Navy the
distinction between an apothecary and a dispenser was obvious from the
difference in salaries. The Chief Dispenser at Greenwich in 1789 earned
£50 per year, while the surgeon received £150 and the physician £200. 15
This position would appear to be supported by Haigh who when
discussing the Russian Navy mentions that, ―Salaries shall be paid to
physicians, surgeons, apothecaries' assistants and apprentices ….‖ 16 As
there is no mention of an apothecary as such, it would seem reasonable to
assume that the term, apothecaries‘ assistant, has the same meaning as
that in Britain after 1815. Haigh also quotes, ―The Clerk, ... when the
doctor or chief surgeon at the hospital attaches prescriptions for medicines
for each patient to his bed must ensure that the apothecaries' assistant
15 Cowen, „Notes on Hospital Pharmacy in the Royal Navy in the Eighteenth Century‟, 568 quoted in
Lloyd and Coulter, Medicine and the Navy 1200-1900 vol. iii 1714-1815, p. 49, note 2 and J. Cooke and
J, Maule, An Historical Account of the Royal Hospital for Seamen (London, 1789) quoted in Lloyd and
Coulter, Medicine and the Navy 1200-1900 vol. iii 1714-1815, p. 50, note 1.
16 Reglament o upravlenii Admiralteistva i verfi i chast‟ vtoraya Reglamenta Morskago PSZ-1, VI, No.
3937, 5 April 1722 quoted in Haigh, „Design for a Medical Service: Peter the Great‟s Admiralty
Regulations (1722)‟, 131, note 9.
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