England Occupations Medicine (National Institute)

Apothecaries
By the 13th century the pepperers (also known as grocers), spicers and apothecaries controlled the trade in drugs and spices from abroad. The London Company of Apothecaries was incorporated in 1606 as a section of the Grocers Company, but separated from them in 1617 (Amsden). There was continuing friction between physicians and apothecaries on who had the right to prescribe medicines, but in 1722 the apothecaries gained the right to inspect all druggists shops in London. From 1815 it was the licensing agency for English and Welsh apothecaries who had to have taken a five-year apprenticeship. The Apothecaries Company apprenticeships 1617-1669 have been indexed by Wallis (London Apprentices Volume 32. Apothecaries’ Company 1617-1669. Society of Genealogists, 2000) and later ones can be found in Wallis and Wallis (Eighteenth Century Medics: A Register. Project for Historical Biobibliography, Newcastle upon Tyne., 1988). Many apothecaries will be found in the medical registers, and a list of all certificated apothecaries 1815-1840 has been published on three fiche by the Society of Genealogists.

CHART: Example from Certificated Apothecaries List 1815-1840

Hurley describes the early history and duties of the apothecary as the dispenser of medicine (The Book of Trades or Library of the Useful Arts. Vol I. Wiltshire Family History Society, 1991), of the chemist as maker and the druggist as seller of medicines (The Book of Trades or Library of the Useful Arts. Vol III. Wiltshire Family History Society, 1994). Prendergast has a delightful contemporary essay on the species (The Apothecary in Portraits of the English Vol III: In Sickness and in Health edited and published by COLLINS, Audrey. 1999-1. Original published by Robert Tyas, London, 1840), Rookledge (Was Your Ancestor a Chemist? Greentrees (Westminster and Central Middlesex Family History Society) Vol 21 #1, page 8-9) discusses his chemist ancestor, and Jackson (The Victorian Chemist and Druggist. Shire Publications) has a well-illustrated look at the Victorian chemist and druggist and his equipment. The names of the clerks, bedels and other staff of the Society of Apothecaries are listed by Stringer (The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London. Metropolitan (London and North Middlesex Family History Society) Vol 18 #4, page 182-183, 1996). The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has records from 1840 and is very helpful to genealogists.

Dentists
The term dentist came into use about 1750, but these practitioners often did not have any more medical background than the formerly-used barber-surgeons, itinerant tooth-pullers, local blacksmiths or the operators on the teeth who also provided false teeth. Training and examinations were introduced in the mid-19th century and the Dentists Register established in 1878 gave names, addresses, date of registration and qualifications.

CHART: Example from Dentists Register 1912 [Note that those in practice before 1878 were grandfathered in]

The British Dental Association came in 1880 and there was a further Dental Act in 1921 regulating the profession. There has not been a lot written for the family historian with dentist ancestors; the best I can produce is Ash, who tells about a denture maker who perfected a suitable porcelain for making dentures as he hated using dead men’s teeth!

Nurses
Prior to the Reformation nursing was largely in the hands of religious bodies and both male and female nurses were common. At the dissolution of the monasteries a crisis in health care arose, with a variety of responses. Some hospitals, like St. Bartholomew’s in London were re-established on secular lines, but most nursing was carried out by totally untrained and mostly unclean women of the Sarah Gamp type in Dicken’s Martin Chuzzlewit (Howlett). Doctors’ assistants carried out much of what we now think of as nurses’ duties, and the women were really low-class domestic servants. There was little change until the mid-19th century when a few Anglican nursing sisterhoods were formed to improve the standard of care. The workhouse infirmaries were mostly staffed by other, untrained, inmates, although some of the larger Boards of Guardians did employ experienced nurses. Some voluntary organizations trained district nurses to care for the poor in their homes. The big change came after the Crimean War (1854-56) with the work of Florence Nightingale and others. St. Thomas’ Hospital’s Nightingale School provided a year of nursing training to paying lady pupils, and to probationers who were taught free-of-charge. Now respectable women found it possible to train for a nursing career, with those from the higher echelons subsequently becoming matrons and introducing training elsewhere. Thus the concept of nursing training spread rapidly, with longer periods and higher levels of expertise. The hospital was still the last resort for the patient, though, since until the nature of infectious disease and its control with antiseptics was understood the risk of acquiring infection in hospital was great. So the hospitals catered mainly to the lower classes, the more affluent preferring to be nursed in their own homes, and this provided a better environment and a good source of income for private nurses.

Monthly nurses are often noted in the 19th century censuses. These were private nurses who came into the home once the midwife’s work was finished, to assist mother and child for one month. An unflattering contemporary portrait of the early members of the species is given by Hunt. In the days before baby formula a wet nurse was a decent working-class woman who breast-fed another’s baby for several months, receiving a wage and good food during this time.

Good sections on the history of nursing are provided by Bourne and Chicken (Records of the Medical Professions. A Practical Guide for the Family Historian. Self-published. ), Amsden (The Medical Professions and Their Archives. ASAT Productions, Dunbeg, Argyll), Howlett (Records of Nurses and Nursing. Resources in London Metropolitan Archives 1556-1939. Genealogists Magazine Vol 26 #6, page 213-217), Carter (Old Occupations: Nursing. Family Tree Magazine Vol 8 #5, page 43-45, 1992) and Daykin (Nurses and Midwives Records in The Family and Local History Handbook. 6th edition, page 25-27. Genealogical Services Directory) and a smaller one by Herber (Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1999), Fry (Getting On With It: Remembering Nurse Training in the 1930s. Family Tree Magazine Vol 9 #12, page 16-17), and Carter (Old Occupations: Further Memories of Nurse Training in the 1930s. Family Tree Magazine Vol 12 #2, page 3-5, 1995) both reminisce on nurse training in the 1930s. The UK Centre for the History of Nursing contains details about the National Council of Nurses and the Society of Registered Male Nurses. Just before WWI the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachments) were formed to nurse casualties and Douglas (A VAD Nurse in the Great War - and After. Bygone Kent Vol 23 #5, page 250-260) provides the story of one such nurse.

Nursing records are held by the training hospitals as well as those that employed nurses, although the latter may be harder to find. Thus it is essential that the researcher know the name of at least one of these. As an example of records, those for Greater London are discussed by Howlett (Records of Nurses and Nursing. Resources in London Metropolitan Archives 1556-1939. Genealogists Magazine Vol 26 #6, page 213-217), and these include Guy’s Hospital (see Cole’s 1997, Questions and Answers. Family Tree Magazine Vol 13 #9, page 51.), the Westminster Hospital, and the Nightingale Training School (Cole) with admissions registers for probationers 1860-1920 supplying:


 * Name and age. 
 * Dates of admission and transfer to St. Thomas’ Hospital. 
 * Place of origin.

The probationers’ books 1860-1930 contain:


 * Name and age. 
 * Marital status. 
 * Religion. 
 * Date of appointment. 
 * Person recommending. 
 * Assessment of sobriety and truthfulness. 
 * Monthly assessments of nursing skills. 
 * Details of any absences from duty.

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