Apoth'ecary, Druggist or Pharmacist, in a general sense, one who keeps a shop or laboratory for preparing, compounding and selling medicines, and for the making up of medical prescriptions. It was in Africa that physicians first began to give up to ingenious men the preparation of medicines from prescriptions. It is probable, therefore, that many Arabic terms of the art were by these means introduced in pharmacy and chemistry, and have been still retained and adopted. In the United States one who keeps a drugstore is usually called a druggist, while the term pharmacist is applied to one who has completed a course in pharmacy and is licensed to compound medicines from physicians' prescriptions.