THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OE PHARMACY. 335 
Calling of Delegates.— The names of the delegates having been called, 
the meeting will proceed to the election of a president and secretary. 
Order of Business.— First Resolution — That a uniform system of education 
throughout Australasia is desirable, such system to embrace— (a) Preliminary 
examination, to include the same subjects as required by the Pharmaceutical 
Society of Great Britain. ( b ) Apprenticeship of four years, (c) Course of study, 
based upon the course adopted by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. 
( d ) Examinations to be conducted by examiners appointed by boards, councils, 
or governing body:— 1. The mode of conducting examinations to be both written 
and oral in every subject. 2. The subjects of examinations to embrace botany, 
materia medica, chemistry and practical chemistry (to be conducted, as far 
as practicable, in conformity with the practice in Great Britain), and practical 
pharmacy (as conducted in Yictoria). 
Second Day, Thursday, 28th October. 
Second Resolution — The desirability of uniformity in Australasian pharma- 
ceutical legislation. In order to facilitate the discussion of this subject, it is 
strongly urged that the delegates from each colony should be furnished with copies 
of the Acts in force or proposed to be enacted in their respective colonies. 
Third Resolution— Uniformity in the laws relating to the sale and use of poisons and 
regulations for their custody. It is also suggested as in the previous clause. 
Third Day, Friday, 29th October. 
Fourth Resolution— Interchange of certificates. That, on adopting and giving 
effect to Resolution I., the examination certificates shall be recognised by the 
governing bodies of the various colonies. Fiftn Resolution That the rapid increase 
in the trade of proprietary medicines and secret nostrums is antagonistic to the 
true interest of pharmacy. 
Apropos of the Conference, the following letter from Professor Attfield to 
Mr. Roche (Rocke, Tompsitt and Co.) will be read with interest:— 
Dear Mr. Rocke,— I thank you for the copy of the April circular relating to the 
Intercolonial Pharmaceutical Conference. I do trust, for the ■welfare of Australasian 
pharmacy and pharmacists, that due prominence will be given at the Conference to the 
relation which (C) the course of study and (D) the examinations should bear to each 
other. If examination alone be depended on as a test of the knowledge possessed by a 
candidate, that knowledge will— according to the irresistible operation . of the law of 
demand and supply — become (after the first year or so of the examinations) superficial 
and ephemeral knowledge. Mere examination cannot distinguish between this temporary 
stuff and that real, lasting knowledge which is serviceable alike to the candidate himself, 
his calling, and the community. Every good examiner knows this to.be true, and every 
authority on education has long known it to be true. In Great Britain we have only 
found all this out by bitter experience ; and, though we are all agreed as to the remedy, 
the difficulty of counteracting the evil now is enormous. The remedy is to require every 
candidate, before he enters the examination-room, to show by a proper schedule that he 
has regularly and profitably attended a publicly-conducted, properly-supervised, sound 
course of study. The examiners, knowing that the course of study is trustworthy,, that 
the teachers are trustworthy, and that the candidate has only got his schedule signed 
after showing at weekly tutorial classes that he has really learned wh*t he was set to 
learn, will have the comparatively easy task of ascertaining by a few questions that 
teacher and candidate have done their respective duties. I do implore the Conference 
to beqin by demanding this relationship between education and examination ; the evils 
and difficulties ive now find so stupendous will thus, in the colonies, never arise. 
Yours faithfully, 
17 Bloomsbury-square, London, 15th July. JOHN ATTFIELD. 
The composition of the well-known vermin killer, “Rough on Rats,” is said 
to be arseaions oxide, coloured with charcoal. The hydrated oxide of iron is 
recommended as an antidote. 
