204 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
incidental to starting and carrying on a new industry, proves what might be 
done were such efforts multiplied and extended. ... I felt as I turned 
my steps homeward that it would be well for the colony and its people to have 
dotted here and there over its vast expanse a few such spots as Mitcham Grove, 
but on a more extended scale, where the plants which minister to man’s luxury, 
or alleviate his pain, or infuse fresh vigour into him, might grow and flourish 
like the land itself.” 
PHARMACY IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
Cheering indeed to pharmacists throughout Australasia, whose eyes are directed 
to the forthcoming Conference, and who are even already congratulating them- 
selves upon the benefits which can scarcely fail to result from its deliberations, 
is the record of the most recent addition to the ranks of our societies — the 
Pharmaceutical Association of South Australia. From its very inception, the 
Society displayed a vigour that gave promise of rapid development into a useful 
and influential organisation; the roll of members speedily included the names of 
the majority of the local chemists ; a large number of assistants hastened to 
enter themselves as associates, with the view of qualifying themselves by 
honorary examinations for full membership ; and month by month the reports 
which have been published in the Australasian Journal of Pharmacy have been 
a record of steady progress and growth. At its earlier meetings the Society 
determined, or thought it advisable, that no State aid should be sought, and 
that they should endeavour to raise the tone of pharmacy by purely voluntary 
methods. Not the least interesting evidence of advance is the fact that already 
doubts are entertained as to the wisdom of this decision, and the tone of the 
discussion, as reported in our last issue, on the question of appointing' 1 a 
committee to consider the advisability of obtaining a Pharmacy Act for South 
Australia, leads us to hope that, ere long, they will in this matter follow in the 
course which has proved of such material advantage to pharmacy in Victoria. 
Among the objections urged against the suggested Act was that it might 
seriously embarrass, or unduly restrict, them in their business ; one member 
feared that it might prevent chemists prescribing for slight ailments, which 
restriction, he said, would be severely felt by some ; while another expressed the 
opinion that such restrictions could only be prevented by having influence in the 
Legislature, where there were several representatives of the medical profession to 
look after its interests. Our own opinion is that the dreaded medicoes would be 
found among the first and heartiest supporters of any measure that would tend 
to raise the status of the pharmacist, and that no attempt would be made to 
deprive the latter of any privilege to which custom had given him a kind 
of prescriptive right. Rut were it otherwise, we can scarcely believe 
that South Australian pharmacists will allow a possibility of this nature to frighten 
them; or that they hold the privilege of “prescribing for slight ailments” as of 
greater importance than the educational and social advantages which, they admit, 
would result to them from the passing of a Pharmacy Act. The great interest 
which has been displayed in the honorary examinations of the society shows that 
the rising generation of South Australian pharmacists are anxious to prove that 
they are something more than mere drug-sellers or vendors of patent medicines ; 
and many of them would, no doubt, welcome such legislation as would place 
them on a level with their confreres in Victoria, and enable them to claim recogni- 
tion at the hands of the pharmaceutical authorities of that colony. In their 
interests, as well as those of the present members of the society, we trust that, 
having once put their shoulders to the wheel, our South Australian friends will 
