Support Your Local Drug Dealer

I’m pretty sure I’ve started writing a Regency soap opera. I’m not at all sure if this is a marketable direction, but my Muse is temperamental. After the pandemic isolation, she became a ghost of herself—which may be why I ended up writing about ghosts. But I wanted to go back and try my hand at writing straight Regency historicals again—and soap opera is what happened. I’m calling it a mystery, but that was only after I went back in and added clues and eventually came up with a dead body.

But whatever this story is, it means I’m happily researching history again. For me, history doesn’t have to be politics, although it does help to know what is happening in the year I’m writing about. So, yeah, Napoleon escaped in 1815, soldiers who had just gone home rejoined Wellington, yadda yadda. The War of 1812 ended so my American can visit his mother’s ancestral home, nice. But those little details don’t affect my uninhabited rural manor much.

Soap operas, mysteries, and romances are about people. Developing characters and their stories are my true love, no matter what era or genre. I couldn’t have a heroine inheriting a share of a manor who wasn’t part of Regency aristocracy, so she already had shape and form. But who she chooses to spend her time with says a lot about her character and back story. Giving my heroine a half Hindu, half Jewish apothecary companion really made my Muse happy.

It might be entertaining to learn more about the apothecary’s unusual origins, but she’s a secondary character, and the plot is complicated enough already. So, her parents are dead, her father was a genuine apothecary, and she learned science from him. But what I needed to know was the laws about women as apothecaries. That’s where it pays to research the year in which the story is told—the UK started licensing apothecaries in 1815, the year of my story.

That’s when I learned that by this era, apothecaries didn’t just dispense drugs. They were essentially general practitioners, visiting households, diagnosing illnesses, and prescribing remedies—basically for the middle class who couldn’t afford a licensed—and rather rare—physician. The apothecary/general practitioner could provide your medicine, of course, but if you wanted to run out and buy a common painkiller or laxative, you would go to a druggist/chemist.

The rivalry between licensed physicians, general practitioners, and druggists is one of the reasons why apothecaries finally had to study and pass tests to be licensed. But it wasn’t just jealousy between the professions—women had been acting as apothecaries from time immemorial. As the position became more and more important (well-paid), male apothecaries objected, and they finally found a way to squeeze out female herbalists. Despite the fact that women had mixed herbs and drugs in the same manner as men from the beginning of time, after 1815, they could no longer be paid and respected as apothecaries. A female attending patients in households was frowned upon anyway, but the real obstacle to women receiving a license was that advanced educational institutions didn’t allow women to walk their hallowed halls. (The first woman graduating as an apothecary was in 1865)

So my character, who had worked in tandem with her father her entire life, could no longer call herself an apothecary. She could diagnose and prescribe as well as any man, but she was limited to standing behind a retail counter, dispensing herbals. Her father had been a man of science who had taught her how to experiment and improve his formulas, but her general practitioner knowledge would go to waste.

My heroine, being of the female persuasion, might call upon a female apothecary to help treat her mother in defiance of male domination of the market. And that is how a half-Hindu, half-Jewish druggist might end up in my rural manor as a companion for an aristocratic spinster. And in those rural environs, with no physician, bonesetter, apothecary, or any other medical professional available, my secondary character would become an essential asset, despite her gender and lack of license.

Of these tiny details, my stories are made. 

Have you read any historical soap operas lately? <G> What kind of historical details do you like in your romances?

Comments

[Mary M.]

Fascinating, Pat! I learned new stuff just from your post. I love this level of attention to detail, and the topic is so interesting. I noted the shape of the LEECHES jar, with those funny little handles that look like a couple of the occupants are escaping , and wonder what's in the highly decorative jar—I could make out EXT:HELLAB, and surmised EXT=extract, but have no idea what comes after the B. I imagine exploring the paraphernalia and practices of apothecaries serving different levels of society made you a top-notch rabbit hole. Will definitely be reading this book as soon as it's released!

[Katja]

Very interesting history, I shall have to find out, if that was the same in other countries as well. And I'm looking forward to reading the book already.
As for the jar, I suppose it could read HELLEB for Helleborus, and after that an "N", perhaps for Niger. Helleborus niger (commonly known as christmas rose) was (and still is sometimes) indeed used as a pharmaceutical, although it can be rather dangerous due to its toxic nature.

[Lil Marek]

Interesting. John Keats got an apothecary's license in 1816, which also allowed him to be a surgeon. Are you sure your female apothecary wouldn't rather be a poet? That was Keats' preference.
I must say those apothecary jars are much prettier than the plastic packages I get from the drugstore.

[Patricia Rice]

I love that you dug into the images. HELLEBORE would be the extract: https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-99/black-hellebore

One of my interests was in verifying that the jars and tins might come in different shapes so they're identified by touch. Watch for that one.

[Patricia Rice]

oh cool, you recognized it! I imagine every country had its own competitive needs. If they had few physicians and few medical schools, they might have to rely on women and their herbal knowledge. But I'll stick to studying one country at a time!

[Patricia Rice]

and I should think the jars would be a lot easier to open! Which might be disastrous in an earthquake. OK, our minds travel weird places. I'm pretty certain my lady has no desire whatsoever to play with words when she can play with plants. And Keats was smart to have a real job while playing at a creative one, as all creatives eventually learn!

[Annette N]

Thanks for the interesting post. And yes the pictures of the jars are interesting. Is it just me, or does it seem that so many things that once were created to be attractive and useful are now simply utilitarian?
I am so relieved that women did not have to use their pretty little heads to learn and do. That allowed more time to pound the laundry on the river bank.....sorry.....my sarcasm font is out of order.

[Patricia Rice]

I assume, back then, drugs were not something most households could afford as we do today. And since each apothecary mixed their own, they needed reusable containers. The drugs were actually dispensed in papers--not quite as pretty as our plastic.
And yes, your sarcasm is appreciated. (Your font wouldn't work here anyway. Tyepad's fonts have gone whackadoodle!)

[Kareni]

What a fascinating post, Pat, and a catchy title! Thank you.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Pat--as has been noted, you found yourself a GREAT rabbit hole here! As with midwives, men wanted to elbow out the women so they could earn the money. We're still working on correctiog that one!

[Patricia Rice]

One can be certain the argument of the male physicians would be "we have to support our family." I want to take a fist to everyone who ever said that to me...but men know they're bigger and can get away with it. And are still getting away with it. Maybe we should carry stun guns.

[Lil Marek]

Unfortunately, he never actually practiced as a surgeon or apothecary and had severe money problems all his short life.

[Lil Marek]

I once at a school where the headmaster wanted to recruit more male teachers and actually used that argument for why he would pay them more. It's amazing how quickly a group of polite ladies can turn into a herd of screaming Bacchantes.

[Patricia Rice]

LOL, I would have loved to have been there! It's a wonder he walked away with his head still attached.