282 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
18. No person shall receive from the Board a certificate that he is duly 
qualified for registration as a registered pharmaceutical chemist unless he shall 
have attained the age of twenty-one years, and unless 
(I.) At any time before the date of the commencement of this Act he shall 
for not less than two months have carried on the business of a chemist 
and druggist or homoeopathic chemist in the keeping of an open shop 
for the compounding and dispensing of the prescriptions of legally 
qualified medical practitioners, or unless 
(II.) At any time before the date of the commencement of this Act he shall 
for not less than three months have been employed as a dispensing 
assistant in an open shop for the compounding and dispensing of the 
prescriptions of legally qualified medical practitioners or until he shall 
have been for not less than three years employed as a dispensing 
chemist in an hospital benevolent asylum or other public institution. 
Mr. Dimock, it will be seen, claims that, having previously served as an 
apprentice for two years , he had been employed as a dispensing assistant from 
1st October, 1874, to July, 1876. The certificate of registration of birth shows 
that Mr. Dimock was born on the 5th April, 1861, from which it would appear 
that, at the date when he had emerged from the condition of an apprentice 
to that of a full-fledged assistant dispenser, he had reached the mature age of 
thirteen years and a half, or thereabouts. Unfortunately the Act fails to impose any 
condition as regards the age of assistants entitled to claim; but we think our 
readers will agree with us that it was scarcely contemplated by the Legislature 
that a boy who, when the Act came into force, had not reached his sixteenth year 
should be entitled to take advantage of the clause by which it was intended to 
conserve the existing rights of chemists and qualified assistants ; and that the 
Pharmacy Board would have been unfaithful to the grave responsibilities of their 
position if they had admitted such claims until compelled to do so by a decision 
of the judicial authorities. 
Important, however, as this phase of the case is, it is by no means the main 
question at issue, and if the Chief Justice's decision is not set aside by the Full 
Court the result can scarcely fail to be disastrous to the best interests of 
pharmacy as well as of the public. As was clearly pointed out by Mr. Isaacs, 
wherever the Legislature imposes a mandate on the Board it has done so in 
express terms, and it naturally follows that as, instead of providing that under 
certain circumstances applicants shall be entitled to a certificate, the Act is 
limited to describing the conditions without the fulfilment of which the Board 
cannot grant such certificates, the intention of the Legislature being that the Board 
should have absolute discretionary power to deal with applicants, and to take 
into consideration many other circumstances for which it was not considered 
necessary to make special provision in the Act. The Chief Justice’s decision 
practically denies the existence of any such discretionary power ; and ^should it 
be upheld, no matter whether he be insane or guilty of offences or conduct 
proving him to be totally unfit to be entrusted with the responsible duties of 
the profession, the Board will, in future, be competed to grant every applicant 
who has fulfilled the prescribed legal conditions the power to announce himself to 
the public as a duly qualified pharmacist. If such be the law, its amendment 
must be sought without delay; but in the meantime the Pharmacy Board 
deserve, and will no doubt receive, the sympathy of the profession and the 
public in appealing against a decision which would deprive them of the powers 
which have hitherto been used to such good advantage to both classes. 
Japan possesses two newspapers exclusively devoted to pharmacy, seven 
medical journals, and nine which relate to sanitary matters. 
