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Apothecaries/Assistant Surgeons and StewardsIntroductionAncestors in British India often followed the professions of '''Apothecary ''' or '''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.
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 listed in Crawford, except for some reason, those in the Madras Presidency. It should be noted that 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.
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. The following link sets out the requirements for Assistant-Surgeons in the service of the East India Company in March 1856.
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/21858/pages/976
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There are two apparent contradictions that researchers will face straight away. According to usual definitions, apothecary is an old fashioned word for a pharmacist, while surgeons perform surgery. In this context however, they are used for the same job at different times and in fact Apothecaries in the earlier period and Assistant Surgeons in the later were required to do both and much more besides.
The second problem concerns whether they are Military or Civilian and the answer to this is the former, although they could be posted as Civil Surgeons to hospitals and even jails.
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 listed in Crawford, except for some reason, those in the [[Madras Presidency]]. It should be noted that 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. 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. Conversely, however brilliant, the Indian born and educated men were trained in India and provided service in the ISMD, on lower pay scales. Some did rise in seniority, but would always be 'inferior' to their colleagues in the IMS. As the years went by, this perceived inferiority became an issue to be addressed. There are examples of men in the ISMD trained elsewhere, although these were in the minority. For example, The London Gazette Oct 17, 1919 lists under ''To be Senior Asst Surgeon with rank of Lieutenant: 1st class Asst Surgeons, 10th Feb 1919, Frederick William Mathews, L.R.C.P and S.I., L.M (Dub) '' ie Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (London) and Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (LRCSI), coupled with a Licence in Midwifery.. *****
The India Office Family History Search, in its Dictionary gives the following description of Apothecary:
The title given to the various grades of warrant officer in the Indian Military Subordinate Medical Service. The rank of Apothecary was abolished in the Subordinate Medical Service in 1894 and replaced by that of Assistant Surgeon. Apothecaries in the Indian Army undertook general medical duties - by the early 19th century the word was used in the more general sense of medical practitioner as well as in its original meaning of pharmacist.
