Worshipful Society of Apothecaries

One of the Livery Companies of the City of London. It is ranked at 58

Its motto is Opiferque Per Orbem Dicor (I am called a bringer of help throughout the world).


 * Prior to the foundation of the Society in 1617, London apothecaries were members of the Grocers' Company (founded 1345) and before this they were members of the Guild of Pepperers (founded before 1180).
 * The apothecaries separated from the Grocers in 1617, when they were granted a Royal Charter by James I.
 * Its founded in 1673 of the Chelsea Physic Garden in Chelsea, London, one of the oldest botanical gardens in Europe, and the second oldest in Britain.
 * During the rest of the 17th century its members (including Nicholas Culpeper) challenged the monopoly of members of the College of Physicians to practice medicine.
 * In 1704, the House of Lords overturned a ruling of the Queen's Bench in the "Rose Case", which effectively gave apothecaries the right to practice medicine, meaning that apothecaries may been seen as the forerunners of present-day General Practitioners.
 * The Apothecaries Act 1815 granted the Society the power to license and regulate practitioners of medicine throughout England and Wales.
 * The Society retained such a role as a member of the United Examining Board until 1999.

Its hall is Apothecaries' Hall in Blackfriars.

Notable people who qualified in medicine as a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA) include John Keats (1816), Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1865, and therefore became the first to gain a medical qualification in the UK identifiably as a woman), and Ronald Ross (1881).

The website is and the Wikipedia page is.