APOTACTITES

apotactites, or apotactici (from gr. [greek: apotaktos], set apart), a sect of early christians, who renounced all their worldly possessions. (see apostolici _ad init._) apothecary (from the lat. _apothecarius_, a keeper of an _apotheca_, gr. [greek: apotheke], a store), a word used by galen to denote the repository where his medicines were kept, now obsolete in its original sense. an apothecary was one who prepared, sold and prescribed drugs, but the preparing and selling of drugs prescribed by others has now passed into the hands of duly qualified and authorized persons termed "chemists and druggists," while the apothecary, by modern legislation, has become a general medical practitioner, and the word itself, when used at all, is applied, more particularly in the united states and in scotland, to those who in england are called "pharmaceutical chemists." the apothecaries' society of london is one of the corporations of that city, and both by royal charters and acts of parliament exercises the power of granting licences to practise medicine. the members of this society do not possess and never have possessed any exclusive power to deal in or sell drugs; and until 1868 any person whatever might open what is called a chemist's shop, and deal in drugs and poisons. in that year, however, the pharmacy act was passed, which prohibits any person from engaging in this business without being registered. from early records we learn that the different branches of the medical profession were not regularly distinguished till the reign of henry