the.com/apothecary
the original pharmacist, dealing herbs and arsenic with equal professional confidence.
means A historical druggist who prepared and sold medicines, herbs, and remedies — essentially the pre-modern pharmacist and often the poor person's doctor.
from From Greek 'apotheke,' a storehouse or warehouse — literally a place where things are 'put away' (apo- 'away' + tithenai 'to put'). This passed into Latin as 'apotheca' and then Late Latin 'apothecarius,' meaning a shopkeeper or storekeeper, before narrowing in Old French and medieval English to one who specifically stored and sold drugs and spices. The same 'apotheke' root, traveling a different road through Romance languages, also gives us the French 'boutique' and the Spanish 'bodega' — distant cousins, all once just rooms where you stashed your goods.
- latin root
- apotheca meant a storehouse for wine and goods
- poison desk
- sold deadly nightshade and cosmetics side by side
- romeo's source
- Shakespeare's apothecary illegally sold the fatal poison
- jar of secrets
- ornate albarello jars held remedies and pure guesswork
- guild split
- English apothecaries broke from grocers in 1617
speyer historical pharmacy — oldest pharmacy in continuous operation, founded 1161 in germany