Apothecaries And Inaccuracies In The Victorian Era

Do you ever wonder about what people of the Victorian era did differently than us now? There are multiple sources concerning the Victorian era by numerous authors who discuss the lifestyle of the people living in this time. In those sources, many things are different such as medical training, education, literature and the way they celebrated holidays, just to name a few. To begin, in the Victorian era medical workers were trained by men already in the practice through apprenticeship. The reason for there only being men was because it was believed women couldn't do the manual labor of apprenticeship. The time being an apprentice depended on which type of medical worker, you wanted to be. There were surgeons who set bones, pulled teeth and treated
There were also physicians who were the only ones with university degrees, which required reading Latin and Greek theories and no clinical experience (Swisher 189). Finally, there were apothecaries who sold clinical drugs and gave medical advice (Swisher 192). Even though, anyone at this time could prescribe treatments (Swisher 192). Physicians, unlike the other medical workers, didn't need to be apprenticed since they went to a university for a degree. But, surgeons began their apprenticeship in their mid-teens until their mentor believed they could start the practice (Swisher 188). Similarly, apothecaries served a 5 year apprenticeship which included at least a 6 month term of hospital work (Swisher 192). The training or apprenticeship of any medical worker took quite some time to complete. This means that there were only a hand full of doctors capable of helping and only a select few chosen to be treated. That select few were those richer people of the Victorian era and those poorer were left untreated ,causing shorter lives to those unable to afford the services