The apothecaries' ordinance at Nuremberg provided that no Theriaca should in future be branded with the seal of the city unless it had been previously examined and declared worthy of the same by the doctors of medicine, and that every druggist must know the age of the Theriaca he sold.
The drugs used by the physicians and apothecaries were purchased from the grossarii or sellers in gross, who were subsequently called 'grocers, some of whom specialized as druggists and others as chymists or chemists.
The apothecaries, who were the pharmacists of those days, were not represented by any corporate body, but in the reign of King James I., in 1606, were incorporated with the Company of Grocers.
This arrangement was not, however, approved of by the physicians, who obtained in 1617 a separate charter for the apothecaries, to the number of 114, which was the number of physicians then practising in London.
Soon after the apothecaries were formed into a separate company they took into consideration means to prevent the frauds and adulterations practised by the grocers and druggists, and, to remedy the evil, established a manufactory of their own in 1626 so that they might make preparations for their own members.
