the cut and dry apothecary

The cut and dry apothecary is a minor but telling figure in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a physician whose professional detachment is shattered by his encounter with Edward Hyde, revealing that Hyde's evil provokes an instinctive, almost primal loathing even in the most dispassionate observers.

Identity and Description

The apothecary is introduced by Mr. Richard Enfield as "the usual cut and dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe." This description establishes him as a thoroughly ordinary, unremarkable medical man, one whose professional demeanor is so flat and unfeeling that Enfield compares him to a musical instrument incapable of expressing emotion. He is a type rather than an individual, a representative of the medical profession's clinical detachment.

Role in the Child Trampling Incident

The apothecary is called to the scene after Hyde tramples a young girl in the street. He examines the child and pronounces her "not much the worse, more frightened," a clinical assessment that might have ended the matter. Yet his reaction to Hyde himself is anything but clinical. Enfield reports that "every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with desire to kill him." The apothecary, despite his usual emotional flatness, is overcome by a murderous rage that mirrors the feelings of Enfield and the girl's family. He joins the group in threatening Hyde with public scandal, and his presence among the "circle of such hateful faces" confirms that Hyde's effect is universal, not merely personal.

Thematic Significance

The apothecary's transformation from a dry, unemotional professional into a man "sick and white with desire to kill" serves as a crucial piece of evidence in the novel's exploration of evil. If even the most ordinary and dispassionate of men is driven to murderous fury by the mere sight of Hyde, then Hyde's evil is not a matter of subjective distaste but an objective, almost supernatural force. The apothecary's reaction anticipates the responses of every other character who encounters Hyde: Mr. Utterson feels "hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear," Dr. Lanyon experiences a "disgustful curiosity" and physical revulsion, and Poole's "hair stood upon my head like quills." The apothecary, precisely because he is so ordinary and unremarkable, becomes a baseline against which the reader can measure the extraordinary nature of Hyde's deformity of soul.