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Apothecary

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L’Apothicaire | The Apothecary

The Apothecary’s Workshop (“Apotheker im Jahre 1568”, 1568 drawing (unknown artist), Wikimedia Commons).

The Apothecary’s Workshop (“Apotheker im Jahre 1568”, 1568 drawing (unknown artist), Wikimedia Commons).

The apothicaire or apothecary, is the ancestor of the pharmacist. During the time of New France, the apothecary was often a doctor or a surgeon as well. Such was the case of Robert Giffard, the seigneur of Beauport, who was reportedly both a surgeon and an apothecary.

He composed, prepared, and sold drugs, tonics, and liniments based on a person's description of their illness and symptoms. He went to sick people's bedsides, made bandages, and gave patients medications and plants with healing properties. The apothecary could prescribe medicine as he saw fit or receive a prescription from a doctor. He was also the only health professional who prepared and administered enemas.

The apothecary’s shop (usually in his home) was normally stocked with drugs, as well as distillers, mortars, pestles, scales, retorts, demijohns and ovens, items he required to do his job. In the fall, he would order basic products from France and would receive them the following spring, when ships came back to the colony.

Most medicines were composed of flowers, leaves, resins, roots, bark, fruits, seeds and ground flours. Products derived from animals were also used, such as eggs, milk, butter and honey, but also horse manure and crab’s eyes, as well as minerals (sea salt, alum, antimony, sulphur, mercury, lead, amber and coral).

It is important to note that many institutions such as “hôtels-Dieu,” hospitals and Jesuit colleges all had their own apothecary. Additionally, many indigenous peoples also had a vast knowledge of natural medicine, especially when it came to herbs that could cure all sorts of ills. Some of this knowledge was transferred to early European colonists and incorporated into their practices.

Apothecary ads in the newspaper L’Avenir on 27 Sep 1848 (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec)

Known persons that had this occupation: Alexandre-Joseph-Xavier Arnoux/Arnould, Jean-François Bache, Gervais Baudouin, Joseph Beckett, François Benoist, Pierre Berthon, William Binley, Jean Jard Boispineau, Claude Boiteux de Saint-Olive, Pierre Bolduc, William Bowman, Louis-Joseph Brown, Louis-Amable Cazeneuve, Pierre Chabot dit Lusignan, Jean-Baptiste Chrétien, James Cockburn, Joseph Dauquin, Pierre de Sales-Laterrière, John Adam Duff, Guillaume Fontaine, Robert Giffard, Olivier Giroux, Auguste Globensky, Gaspard Gouault, Louis Hébert, John Hurst, Joseph Leblanc, George Longmore, Louis Lyman, Louis Moine, William Moretain, Olivier Morin, Liveright Pieze/Piuze, Josiah Pomeroy, Henry Porter, Abner Price, Charles George Rath, Henry Taylor, Rodolphe Trudeau, Romuald Trudeau, Marc Antoine Vignau.

“Louis Hébert, apothecary at Port-Royal, Acadia”, 1938 painting by C. W. Jefferys, collection of the National Historical site of Port-Royal.

“Louis Hébert, apothecary at Port-Royal, Acadia,” 1938 painting by C. W. Jefferys, collection of the National Historical site of Port-Royal.

German Pharmacy (“Pharmacie Rustique”, 1774 drawing by G. Locher, engraved by Bartholomew Hübner in 1775, Wikimedia Commons).

German Pharmacy (“Pharmacie Rustique”), 1774 drawing by G. Locher, engraved by Bartholomew Hübner in 1775, Wikimedia Commons.

 

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