Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Status, Professionalization, Ethics, Boundary Formation

    Declares that the 'apothecary is constantly thrown, by the course of his profession, into relations in which it requires tact and delicacy to estimate the rights and duties which arise. If he forgets the nature of his duties to those who consult him, he has almost unlimited opportunities of gossip and scandal' (585). The apothecary must remember that 'he is admitted into the houses of his patients for professional purposes only, and that he ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything else'. Although the 'most wretched gossip and sycophant might pull out a tooth or prescribe for an indigestion as successfully as the most honourable member of his profession [...] the first would learn from his calling nothing which was not degrading except technical skill, whilst the second might draw from it endless instruction and improvement'. (586)