Page images
PDF
EPUB

and the origin of the term, are matters on which French writers are not agreed. (Pasquier's Recherches, lib. ii. cap. 18.; lib. viii. cap. 20; Calvini, Lex Jurid. "Appanagium;" Ducange, Gloss. " Apanamentum;" Pothier's Traité des Fiefs; and Henault's Hist. de France, Anno 1283.)

"It is evident," says Mr. Hallam, "that this usage, as it produced a new class of powerful feudatories, was hostile to the interests and policy of the sovereign, and retarded the subjugation of the ancient aristocracy. But an usage coeval with the monarchy was not to be abrogated, and the scarcity of money rendered it impossible to provide for the younger branches of the royal family by any other means." "By means of their apanages and through the operation of the Salic law, which made their inheritance of the crown a less remote contingency, the princes of the blood-royal in France were at all times (for the remark is applicable long after Louis XI.) a distinct and formidable class of men, whose influence was always disadvantageous to the reigning monarch, and, in general, to the people.' (Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 121, 2nd edit.)

By a law of 22nd November, 1790, it was enacted, that in future no apanage real should be granted by the crown, but that the younger branches of the royal family of France should be educated and provided for out of the civil list until they married or attained the age of twenty-five years and that then a certain income called rentes apanagères was to be granted to them, the amount of which was to be ascertained by the legislature for the time being.

:

By a law of March 2, 1832, which regulates the civil list of the present king of the French, it is provided, that in case of the insufficiency of the private domain of the crown, the dotations of the younger sons of the king and of the princesses his daughters shall be subsequently arranged by special laws. Before this law, the

head of the house of Orleans was in possession of all that remained of the ancient apanage of his house, in virtue of art. 4 of the law of 15th January, 1825, according to which the property restored to the

branch of Orleans in execution of several royal ordinances of 1814, would continue to be possessed by the chief of the Orleans branch until extinction of male issue, when the property would return to the state. The conditions attached, according to the old law, to precedents, and the law of 1825, to the possession of the Orleans apanage, were as follows:-1. The prince apanagist owed an allowance to his sons and brothers, and a portion to his daughters and sister. 2. If the prince came to the throne, his apanage was united to the crown domain, from which it was not distinct before 1791. 3. This opened to the princes whom it deprived of their claims on the apanage, a similar claim for themselves and their descendants on the domain of the crown. The law of 15th Jan. 1825, formally maintained these conditions and rights. At the revolution of 1830 the apanage of Orleans was united to the crown, which gave the younger princes a claim for compensation from the country, recognised by the 21st art. of the law of March 2, 1832. This claim, according to the terms of the article, is only admissible when the private domain of the crown is insufficient, and the right is co-existent only with the insufficiency. (Moniteur Universel, 30th June, 1844.) No allowance from the state has yet been made to the family of the present King of the French.

The system of Apanages was mainly formed in Germany by the high nobility. An apanage is there defined to be a provision for the proper maintenance of the younger members of a reigning house upon the establishment of the law of primogeniture, and out of the property which is subjected to this law of descent. In the middle ages, the German princes and nobles contrived to make those powers hereditary and a kind of private property, which were originally only offices granted to them by the emperor; and it followed as a natural consequence of this change, that they applied the same principles to the lands which were subject to their jurisdiction. They began to divide these lands according to their pleasure, and they soon became reduced to such small portions as to be insufficient for the maintenance of the dignity of those to whose

several shares they fell. In course of time it became the policy of the members of a princely or noble family to prevent such further division, and the consequent weakening of their power. In some cases contracts were made among several reigning princes, by which their territories were immediately formed into one body, or by which it was provided that, after the death of one reigning prince, the succession should be continued undivided in the person of some other. In other cases, a father, with the consent of his sons, made an arrangement by which the succession to the property should be undivided. By compact also and testamentary provision against the alienation of such property, the quality of Fideicommissum was given to it. But to get rid of all the evils of divided succession, it was necessary that the administration also of the principality should belong exclusively to one person. It was an old fashion to provide for the daughters by a pension or payment in money, and the custom now increased of providing the younger sons also with such a pension, or with some portion of the family lands, without giving them a full independent sovereignty; and a fixed order of succession was established, by testament or other mode, with the approbation of the emperor. Thus the law of primogeniture was established as the principle which determined the order of succession in the principalities of Germany, and at the same time the younger male members were provided for in the manner stated above. The provision for the younger members was called "deputat" and by various other names till the seventeenth century, when the French expression "apanage" was introduced into use. The word "paragium' also, which in France signified a smaller part of the feud that had been appropriated to a younger son, was used and applied to those cases where the income of a portion of the territory was made Deputat. The allowance which younger sons and their descendants have thus the right to claim from the ruling prince or possessor of the family Fideicommissum is generally fixed more precisely by family arrangements. A father who possesses an apanage, as a general rule

transmits his apanage to his legitimate offspring by an equal marriage (not a marriage of disparagement), and in case there is no such offspring, the apanage reverts to the reigning prince. There are also cases, though much more rare, in which an individual received an apanage on the condition that it reverted on his death.

The name Apanage is now also given to the allowance assigned to the princes of a reigning house for their proper maintenance out of the public chest. Such apanages are introduced in those cases where a civil list is established, and the property originally intended for the support of the members of the reigning family has either been converted wholly or partly into public property, or is administered as public property; and these apanages are substituted for the claims of the younger members of such families as apaganistes on him who holds the family Fideicommissum. The transference of such claims to the public chest is accordingly founded on a right of which the persons entitled to it cannot be justly deprived without their consent. This right would be infringed if the claims to an apanage should lose the nature of a legal right, and should be transferred to the civil list in such a form that the payment of the allowance should depend on the pleasure of the head of the state for the time. But when there has been no change of fideicommissal property belonging to the reigning family into state property, the mere possession of political power by a particular family gives no right to those members of the reigning family who have no share in the government to claim an independent allowance from the income of the state; for the old confusion between the relations of a reigning family to the state and the private relations of the same family, by virtue of which confusion the state was considered the patrimonial property of a family, is altogether unknown at the present day. In states where there has been no change of family property into state property, the reigning prince may be properly enough left to provide for all the members of his family out of the means supplied him by the civil list. There may

however be political reasons for making certain allowances to the members of the reigning family, independent of the civil list that is granted to the ruling prince. But as in modern times neither the honour of a nation nor the dignity of the members of a reigning family depends in any degree on the amount of the expenditure which such members make out of the public treasury, so there are no reasons whatever for making them any independent allowance, except reasons of general interest. Accordingly in what are commonly called constitutional monarchies, where the princes of the royal family are called to any active participation in the offices of state, the allowance of a suitable income out of the public treasury may serve to give them a more independent position with respect to the head of the state. Such an allowance may also serve in the case of princes who stand in the line of succession, to give to those who may be the future heads of the state the respect due to their station, and to secure them a suitable and certain income, and thus to draw more closely the ties which unite them and the people. (Rotteck and Welcker, StaatsLexicon, art. by P. A. Pfizer.) [CIVIL LIST.]

APOTHECARIES, COMPANY OF, one of the incorporated Companies of the city of London.

The word Apothecary is from the French apoticaire, which is defined by Richelet to be "one who prepares medicines according to a physician's prescription." The word is from the low Latin Apothecarius, and that is from the genuine Latin apotheca, which means a storehouse or store-room generally, and, more particularly, a place for storing wine in the Latin word is, however, from the Greek (ἀποθήκη).

In England, in former times, an apothecary appears to have been the common name for a general practitioner of medicine, a part of whose business it was, probably in all cases, to keep a shop for the sale of medicines. In 1345 a person of the name of Coursus de Gangeland, on whom Edward III. then settled a pension of sixpence a day for life, for his attendance on his Majesty some time

[ocr errors]

| before while he lay sick in Scotland, is called in the grant, printed in Rymer's Fodera,' an apothecary of London. But at this date, and for a long time after, the profession of physic was entirely unregulated,

It was not till after the accession of Henry VIII. that the different branches of the profession came to be distinguished, and that each had its province and particular privileges assigned to it by law.

In 1511 an act of parliament (3 Hen. VIII. c. 11) was passed, by which, in consideration, as it is stated, of "the great inconvenience which did ensue by igno rant persons practising physic or surgery, to the grievous hurt, damage, and destruction of many of the king's liege people," it was ordered that no one should practise as surgeon or physician in the city of London, or within seven miles of it, until he had been first examined, approved, and admitted by the Bishop of London or the Dean of St. Paul's, who were to call in to assist them in the examination "four doctors of physic, and of surgery other expert persons in that faculty." In 1518 the physicians were for the first time incorporated, and their college founded, evidently with the view that it should exercise a general superintendence over all the branches of the profession. In 1540 the surgeons were also incorporated and united, as they continued to be till the beginning of the present century, with the barbers.

The two associations thus established appear, however, to have very soon begun to overstep their authority. It was found necessary, in 1543, to pass an act for the toleration and protection of the numerous irregular practitioners, who did not belong to either body, but who probably formed the ordinary professors of healing throughout the kingdom. In this curious statute (34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 8) the former act of 1511 is declared to have been passed, "amongst other things, for the avoiding of sorceries, witchcraft, and other inconveniencies ;" and not a little censure is directed against the licensed and associated surgeons for the mercenary spirit in which they are alleged to have acted; while much praise is bestowed upon the unincorporated practitioners for

their charity in giving the poor the benefit of their skill and care, and for the great public usefulness of their labours generally. The import of the enactment is expressed in its title, which is, " An Act that persons being no common surgeons may minister outward medicines." The persons thus tolerated in the administration of outward medicines, of course comprehended those who kept shops for the sale of drugs, to whom the name of apothecaries was now exclusively applied. The acceptation of the name, as thus confined, may be gathered from Shakspere's delineation of the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet' (published in 1597), as one whose business was "culling of simples," who kept a "shop," the "shelves" of which were filled with "green earthen pots," &c., and who was resorted to as a dealer in all sorts of chemical preparations. Nothing is said of his practising medicine; and it certainly was not till nearly a century later that apothecaries in England, as distinguished from physicians and surgeons, began regularly to act as general practitioners.

It appears to have been only a few years before the close of the seventeenth century that the apothecaries, at least in London and its neighbourhood, began gradually to prescribe, as well as to dispense medicines. This encroachment was strongly resisted by the College of Physicians, who, by way of retaliation, established a dispensary for the sale of medicines to the poor at prime cost at their hall in Warwick Lane. A paper controversy rose out of this measure; but the numerous tracts which were issued on both sides are now all forgotten, with the exception of Garth's burlesque epic poem, entitled "The Dispensary,' first published in 1697. The apothecaries, however, may be considered as having made good the position they had taken, although for a considerable time their pretensions continued to be looked upon as of a somewhat equivocal character. Addison, in the Spectator,' No. 195, published in 1711, speaks of the apothecaries as the common medical attendants of the sick, and as performing the functions both of physician and surgeon. After menMeanwhile, however, the apothecaries tioning blistering, cupping, bleeding, and of London were incorporated by James I. the inward applications employed as exon the 9th of April, 1606, and united pedients to make luxury consistent with with the Company of Grocers. They re- health, he says, "The apothecary is permained thus united till the 6th of De-petually employed in countermining the cember, 1617, when they received a new charter, by which they were formed into a separate company, under the designation of the "Master, Wardens, and Society of the Art and Mystery of Apothecaries of the city of London." This

charter ordains that no grocer shall keep an apothecary's shop; that every apothecary shall have served an apprenticeship of seven years; and before he is permitted to keep a shop, or to act as an apothecary, he shall be examined before the master and wardens to ascertain his fitness. It also gave the Company extensive powers to search for and destroy in the city of London, or within seven miles, compounds and drugs which were adulterated or unfit for medical use. This is the charter which still constitutes them one of the city companies, although various subsequent acts of parliament have materially changed the character of the society.

cook and the vintner." On the other hand, Pope, in his Essay on Criticism,' published the same year, has the following lines in illustration of the domination which he asserts to have been usurped by the critic over the poet :

"So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art

By doctors' bills to play the doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools."

Nor, indeed, did the apothecaries themselves contend at this time for permission to practise as medical advisers and attendants any further than circumstances seemed to render it indispensable. In a clever tract written in their defence, published in 1724, and apparently the production of one of themselves, entitled Pharmacopolæ Justificati; or, the Apothecaries vindicated from the Imputation of Ignorance, wherein is shown that an Academical Education is nowise neces sary to qualify a Man for the practice of

This

Physic,' we find the following opinion | practitioners. And in 1708 we find a expressed (p. 31):-" As to apothecaries series of resolutions published by the practising, the miserable state of the sick Court of Apothecaries, in which they poor, till some other provision is made for complain of the intrusion into their busitheir relief, seems sufficiently to warrant ness of foreigners-that is, of persons not it, so long as it is confined to them." We free of the company. Their charter, may here observe, that the custom of though it appeared to bestow upon them persons being licensed by the bishops to somewhat extensive privileges, had been practise medicine within their dioceses found nearly inoperative from the omiscontinued to subsist at least to about the sion of any means of executing its promiddle of the last century. It is ex- visions, and of any penalties for their claimed against as a great abuse in a infringement. In 1722, therefore, an act tract entitled An Address to the College of parliament was obtained by the comof Physicians,' published in 1747. pany, giving them the right of visiting all shops in which medicinal preparations were sold in London, or within seven miles of it, and of destroying such drugs as they might find unfit for use. act expired in 1729; and although an attempt was made to obtain a renewal of it, the application was not persevered in. But in 1748 another act was passed, empowering the society to appoint ten of their members to form a court of examiners, without whose licence no one should be allowed to sell medicines in London, or within seven miles of it. It was stated before a Committee of the House of Commons, that there were at this time about 700 persons who kept apothecaries' shops in London, not onehalf of whom were free of the company. This act probably had the effect of putting the unlicensed dealers down; which may account for the common statement that no such description of dealers ever made their appearance till a comparatively recent period. In an Introductory Essay prefixed to the first volume of the 'Transactions of the Associated Apothecaries and Surgeon Apothecaries of England and Wales' (8vo. London, 1823), in which it is admitted that anciently "the apothecary held the same situation which appertains, or ought to appertain, to the present druggist, who arose," it is affirmed, "about thirty years ago," the following remark is added:-" For some time pre

It has been often stated that the dealers in medicines called chemists or druggists first made their appearance about the end of the last century. As they soon began to prescribe, as well as to dispense, the rivalry with which they were thus met was as eagerly opposed by the regular apothecaries as their own encroachments had in the first instance been by the physicians. In certain resolutions passed by a meeting of members of the Associated Apothecaries, on the 20th of November, 1812, among other causes which are asserted to have of late years contributed to degrade the profession, is mentioned the intrusion of pretenders of every description:-" Even druggists," it is said, "and their hired assistants, visit and administer to the sick; their shops are accommodated with what are denominated private surgeries; and, as an additional proof of their presumption, instances are recorded of their giving evidence on questions of forensic medicine of the highest and most serious import!" But in all this the druggists did no more than the apothecaries themselves had begun to do a hundred years before. We doubt, too, if the first appearance of these interlopers was so recent as has been assumed. In a tract, printed on a single folio leaf" at the Star in Bow Lane in 1683," entitled 'A Plea for the Chemists or Non-Collegiats,' the author, Nat Merry, stoutly defends the right of him-vious to that period, indeed, certain apoself and the other manufacturers of chemical preparations to administer medicines, against the objections of the members of the Apothecaries' Company, who seem to have been themselves at this time only beginning to act as general

thecaries existed who purely kept shop, without prescribing for diseases; but very few of these existed even in London; for in the memory of a physician lately dead, there were not more, as he stated, than about half a dozen persons

« EelmineJätka »