WHILE PHARMACOPOEIAS like the Parisian Codex medicamentarius governed the world of apothecaries in ancien régime France, there also existed a parallel and more loosely organized tradition whereby pharmaceutical innovators were granted exclusive royal privileges for the sale of novel therapeutic preparations, called “secret remedies.” These privileges in effect granted legal monopolies over the sale of a given drug. Many privilege holders held no formal medical credentials and were not members of the medical corporations—the faculties and colleges of physicians, or the guilds of surgeons and apothecaries.