...Historian Julie Wakefield explains that Keats was “amongst the very first students to be examined under the terms of the Apothecaries Act 1815” that was designed to produce well-rounded general practitioners. Keats proved an “exemplary student”, passing his examinations without delay; his contemporaries included the future founder of The Lancet, Thomas Wakley (1795—1862). The courses, including anatomy, midwifery, and surgery, would have been broken in the spring by “herborising” field trips to locations such as Hampstead Heath, to learn how to identify different plants. This was done, in part, so that the physician could avoid being duped by bulk suppliers—the historical equivalent of today's traders in counterfeit medicines—in the future. These welcome expeditions were a break from the usual squalor of the students' working conditions. As Keats's botany lecturer mused, “When we consider the laborious duties of the student in medicine…one would almost be led to think it was by Divine dispensation that he is afforded so pleasant a contrast as the study of Medical Botany, when in pursuit of which he freely ranges the fields breathing the purest atmosphere.”
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