Letter 0982

Moult is worried that the multiplicity of Petiver’s affairs may have led him to forget to send the ‘Decades’ Moult had requested. He reminds Petiver of his appeal. Francis Moult (d.1733) was an apothecary of Hatton Garden. His older brother, George (c.1659-1727), was an apothecary in Bath (and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1689). Francis and George referred to themselves as “chemysts” and were engaged in a dispute with Dr. Nehemiah Grew MD, FRS over the production and selling of Epsom salts. Grew had a patent on the salts which the Moult brothers ignored. They had purchased and sold Grew’s salts until they discovered they could retrieve the salts themselves and sell them at a lower cost. Francis also translated Grew’s Latin paper on the salts to English (without Grew’s permission) and sold copies to those buying the Moult salts. (“George Moult” Library Catalogue, royalsociety.org; J.G.L. Burnby, A Study of the English Apothecary from 1600-1760, 1983, pubmedcentralcanada.ca, Chapter 3 “The Apothecary as Progenitor”).