TY - JOUR T1 - Apothecaries, physicians and surgeons JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 232 LP - 233 VL - 56 IS - 524 AU - Roger Jones Y1 - 2006/03/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/56/524/232.abstract N2 - Hilary De Lyon's reflections on Trollope1 and her account of the ethical, professional and pecuniary conflicts between making a diagnosis and selling a treatment in the mid-19th century certainly have resonance at the beginning of the 21st. Interestingly, a much earlier fictional account, this time in the form of a short dramatic comedy, of the relationships between physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, has recently come to light.Physick lies a-bleeding, or the apothecary turned doctor, by Thomas Brown, was performed during its world premiere week in Governors' Hall at St Thomas' Hospital on Saturday 21 May 2005. The play was discovered by Dee Cook, the Archivist of the Society of Apothecaries, in microform held by the Shakespeare Institute Library. Written in 1697, the piece highlights the greed and dishonesty prevalent among London apothecaries of the era, while at the same time showing the audience something of the hypocrisy and arrogance of contemporary physicians. At this time physicians, the medical aristocracy of the 17th century, made diagnoses and wrote prescriptions, but did not dispense drugs. Surgeons did what they have always done, and the apothecaries, who had seceded from … ER -