October, 1881. 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST. 
41 
INDEX TO LITERARY CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Leading Article — 
Unqualified Assistants 41 
Tiie Month 42 
Meetings— 
Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria .... 42 
Pharmacy Board of Victoria 43 
Pharmacy in New Zealand 43 
Pharmacy in Fiji 44 
Notice Concerning a New 
toria 
Personalities 
Poisoning Cases 
Orciiid of Vic- 
44 
45 
45 
Glycerine 45 
The Only American Leech Farm ”.'.’..’!.’.'! 45 
Quack Medicine 46 
Plants in their Relation to Health .... 4G 
Non-Explosive Kerosene 48 
Cfic ©fiemtst aittr Druggist. 
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September 28th, 1881. 
UNQUALIFIED ASSISTANTS. 
It has for some time been apparent that the employment 
of unqualified assistants in pharmacies is too common. It 
is in the interest of the public that only examined persons 
should dispense prescriptions and sell poisons. The em- 
ployment of unqualified or imperfectly educated assistants 
as juniors under the strict supervision of the principal, or 
of a qualified senior-assistant, may not be so objectionable, 
although we venture to think that even that is to be 
deprecated on many grounds, for it holds out an encour- 
agement to many young men to be lazy ; it also is an 
injustice to those who have, by commendable effort, quali- 
fied themselves and passed the necessary examinations. 
In England it has long been felt to be an anomaly that 
assistants can in the present state of the law be employed 
without having any qualifications whatever. This subject 
is now engaging the earnest attention of the leaders of 
pharmaceutical education in Great Britain, and there is 
no doubt but that a still further amendment of the Phar- 
macy Act will soon be made in order to bring the educa- 
tion of pharmacists in England as far as possible up to the 
high standard of the great continental states. In a 
valuable report, very ably drawn up by a special com- 
mittee appointed by the Pharmaceutical Society, the whole 
subject of education and examination is exhaustively 
treated, and recommendations are suggested which, if 
carried out, will go a long way in this direction. One of 
the changes urged by the committee is that the pre- 
liminary examination must be passed before apprentice- 
ship. This has, we are happy to say, been done by our 
Pharmacy Board, and will, we are sure, be fraught with 
the most beneficial results in the immediate future. 
Daring the debate at Bloomsbury -square upon the adop- 
tion of the committee’s report, Mr. Andrews made the 
following observations, with which we agree ; and, indeed, 
we have frequently expressed ourselves to the same 
effect : — u With respect to the second communication, 
that the preliminary examination, or its recognised 
equivalent, be passed prior to apprenticeship or pupil- 
age, it stated that this could be insured by pro- 
hibiting a candidate from presenting himself for the 
minor examination until three years after he had 
been certified to have passed the preliminary. Now 
this could not be insured, as he would show, for a very 
painful case had lately come under his notice. A youth 
was apprenticed to a pharmaceutical chemist of standing, 
and before his indentures were signed — and, by the way, 
he might say that the usual form of indentures was, in his 
opinion, perfectly unsuited to their business— the chemist 
said to his friends that he had great doubt about this 
youth passing the preliminary examination. The friends, 
however, said they were quite sure he could pass easily, 
and he was bound. The result was, he never had passed 
the preliminary up to the present time, and he was now a 
man of thirty years of age ; he was acting as an assistant , 
and was a very good assissant , but he had never passed the 
preliminary examination , and never would , and, conse- 
guently, he never could come up for the minor examination. 
He did not see how the object the council had in view 
could be insured unless there were a provision that the 
indentures should be cancelled if the apprentice failed to 
pass the preliminary in due time. The chemist in ques- 
tion would have been quite willing to cancel the indentures, 
but he could not do so, as the boy’s friends held him to his 
bargain. There were a large number of young men in the 
trade who were in precisely the same position, and unless 
some arrangement were made stronger than that proposed 
to ensure the preliminary examination being passed before 
apprenticeship, this difficulty would always be cropping 
up. Mr. Young seemed to think it would be to the 
youth’s own benefit that he should not be compelled to 
pass previously ; but he thought it would be very much to 
his benefit, and to that of his friends, to know whether he 
was fit or unfit for the occupation before he entered upon 
it. He had been informed by a member of the council 
that there were men throughout the country who took 
apprentices and occupied them almost as porters, not 
caring one atom as to their future prospects ; what they 
wanted was cheap labour, and they took these youths on 
that account. It was to prevent such a practice as that 
that he called particular attention to the second recom- 
mendation.” 
