The Apothecaries' Company ranks the fifty-eighth in the list of city Companies. The freedom of the Company is acquired by patrimony, freedom, and redemption. Freedom by patrimony may be acquired by persons not apothecaries. The char ter requires that all persons practising as apothecaries in the city of London should belong to the Company; but this rule is not enforced. Apprentices to apothe caries must be bound at the Company's Hall, after an examination by the Master and Wardens as to their proficiency in Latin. The members of the society are exempted by statute from serving ward and parish offices. The income of the Company is under 20001. a year. Their arms are, azure, Apollo in his glory, hold ing in his left hand a bow, in his right an arrow, bestriding the serpent Python ; supporters, two unicorns ; crest, a rhino ceros, all or; motto, Opiferque per urban dicer. They have a hall, with very ex tensive laboratories, warehouses, &c., in Water-lane, Blackfriars, where medicines are sold to the public ; and where, since the reign of Queen Anne, all the medi, tines are prepared that are used in the army and navy. The freemen of the Company who are what is termed pro prietors of stock, have the privilege of be coming participators in the profits arising from the sale of medicines. The concern is regulated by a committee of thirty members. The dispensary was esta blished in 1623; and the laboratories by subscription among the members of the Company in 1671. The Company also possess a garden, to which every medical student in London is admitted, of above three acres in extent, at Chelsea, in which exotic plants are cultivated. The ground
was originally devised to them, in 1673, for sixty-one years at a rent of five pounds, by Charles Cheyne, Esq., lord of the manor of Chelsea, and afterwards granted to them in perpetuity, in 1721, by his successor, Sir Hans Sloane, on condition that they should annually pre sent to the Royal Society, at one of their public meetings, fifty specimens or samples of different sorts of plants, well-cured and of the growth of the garden, till the number should amount to two thousand. This they have long since done, and the specimens are pre served by the Royal Society. The gar dens are kept up at a considerable expense out of the funds of the Company, assisted at various times by liberal contributions of the members. Connected with the garden is the office of Botanical Demon. strator, who is appointed by the Court.
He gives gratuitous lectures at the garden twice a week from May to September, to the apprentices of freemen of the Com pany, and to the pupils of all botanical teachers who apply for admission at the garden. The society gives every year a gold and a silver medal and books as prizes to the best•nformed students in materia medics, who have attended their garden. The apprentices of members of the society are not permitted to contend with other candidates for these prizes.