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Ancestors in British India often followed the profession professions of '''Apothecary''' (title changed in 1894 to '''Assistant Surgeon''') and it is hoped that this article will help you to track yours down and learn more about how they lived and worked.
==Overview==
====Crawford’s Roll of the Indian Medical Service====
A further frequently asked question is why an Assistant Surgeon ancestor does not appear in ''Crawford’s Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1614-1930''. Apothecaries as members of the Indian Subordinate Medical Department, rather than the superior Indian Medical Service, generally are not generally listed in Crawford, except, for some reason, those in the [[Madras Presidency]]. It should be noted that the IMS used the title Assistant Surgeon for its lower ranks until 1873, and that the ISMD used the same title after 1894. Therefore if your Assistant Surgeon appears with that title before 1873, he should be in the IMS and will not be an Apothecary.
Medical personnel appointed to the IMS will almost always have been educated in the UK, even if they were born in India. They always held higher medical ranking. [http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/21858/pages/976 This London Gazette article] sets out the requirements for Assistant-Surgeons in the service of the East India Company in March 1856.
Some apothecaries working in hospitals also had some private patients, as [http://books.google.com/books?id=LBq1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA256 this article (''Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science'' 1863 v7)] details.
Madras 1863. Promotion of three Senior Apothecaries to Honorary Assistant Surgeons, without, however, any additional allowance in by virtue of the honorary rank. This is contrasted unfavourably with the situation in Bengal, where Apothecaries had been promoted to the rank and position of Commissioned Officers. [http://books.google.com/books?id=2xm1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA465 Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science 1863 Volume 6, page 465]
==The Later Period==
