ABSTRACT
The Apothecaries’ Act of 1815 stands as a signpost within the history of medical education and the medical profession in Britain. As the first parliamentary enactment to require licensing by examination for a large number of medical men-all those who intended to give medical advice and to dispense medicines throughout England and Wales-it marks the watershed between the heyday of unregulated (although not necessarily unqualified) practitioners and the rise of increasing state supervision over entry into the medical profession. Whether the signpost pointed forwards, towards a better educated, respectable general practitioner, or backwards, confirming the apothecary’s subservience to the physician and shackling him to the indignities of apprenticeship, has been a much argued point.
