president's address — SECTION B. 23 



the centenary of Chevreul's great discovery, it is, jierhaps, better 

 that the menibers of our governing classes should acquire scientific 

 knowledge a little late than not at all. Unfortunately, by the 

 time sufficient understanding of the elementary chemistry of ex- 

 plosives had penetrated the minds of the powers that be tO' induce 

 them to make the blockade really effective, the chance for seriously 

 hindering the German manufacture of propellant explosives was 

 lost. During the respite so generously allowed them by the British 

 Government, the German chemists had been a,ble to develop a pro- 

 cess for making, from wood pulp, a cellulose' sufficiently pure and 

 uniform to give a, satisfactory propellant explosive, thus making 

 the German manufacture of explosives as independent of the im- 

 portation of cotton as it had already been made of that of nitrates. 



The exceptionally unsatisfactory status of chemistry in the Bri- 

 tish Empire may be asc'ribed to various causes. One of these, 

 and one which still operates to our detriment, has been the Br:tish 

 Pharmaci/ Act of 1867, which has been adopted in principle 

 throaighout the Empire. For the most part, this Act was admirable, 

 as it not only gave legal reccgnition to the ancient and honorable 

 profession of pharmacy, but also provided the public' with a much 

 needed safeguard against the unchecked sale and incompetent dis- 

 pensing of drugs possessing poisonous properties. But, unfortu- 

 nately, it contained one provision which has led to a most serious 

 misunderstanding in the mind of the public concerning the proper 

 meaning of the name " chemist," and the rightful status of the 

 chemical professioiii, a misunderstanding which is not found in any 

 civilised country outside the British* Empire. This provision for- 

 bids anyone but a chemist, as defined in the Act, to describe him- 

 self as such, unless he has been duly registered as a " Chemist and 

 Druggist," or a " Phannac'eutical Chemist." Thus, to quote the 

 historian of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ire- 

 land, " the President of the Chemical Society of Londoii cannot 

 in strict law call himself by the name by which he is known 

 throughout the civilised world without breaking the laws of his 

 country." It is difficult to believe that such a provision could 

 have been passed by any Legislature which was not pitiably ignor- 

 ant of modeim science. I understand that it has been adopted, in 

 a peculiarly obnoxious form, in the State of Victoria. This 

 deplorable, but legalised annexation, of the generic name of 

 " chemist " by the followers of a specialised branch of applied 

 chemistry, is an example of a kind of legislation which is for- 

 tunately rare. In fact, the only case at all parallel, which I can 

 recall, was when, somewhere about 1880, the Parliament of New 

 South Wales, at the instance of the late Sir Henry Parkes, sought 

 to have the name of that Colony changed to " Australia." 



It is pleasing to note that, in other respects, the relations be- 

 tween pharmacists and non-pharmaceutical chemists have been 

 generally friendly. In fact, the British Pharmaceutical Society 



