VoL. ii., No. 5. 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST OF AUSTRALASIA. 
123 
PHARMACY BOARD OF NEW ZEALAND, 1887. 
Grain Agency Buildings, Christchurch. 
President— JOHN V. ROSS, Christchurch. 
Members— GEO. BONNINGTON, Christchurch; EMIL. C. 
SKOG, Christchurch; CHAS, J. WILSON, Christchurch; 
]AS. ALEX. POND, Auckland; GEO. MEE, Wellington; 
THOS. WILKINSON, Dunedin. 
Registrar— F. SMITH-ANSTED, Christchurch. 
Deputy Registrars — Auckland, H. N. GARLAND; W^elHngton, 
Hy. BRITTAIN ; Dunedin, R. P. BAGLEY. 
^EETINGS 
are held on first Friday evening in each month. 
E xaminations are held on the third Wednesday [in April and 
October, at ■Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin, 
provided a sufficient number of candidates make application throughout 
the colony. 
Fee for Examination, £3 3s.; payableSO days prior to Examination. 
Fee for Registration, £1 Is. 
C HEMISTS registered in Great Britain, and resident in New Zealand, 
are entitled to registration, on application to the Board in proper 
form, accompanied by their certificate of qualification, and the regis- 
tration fee. 
C HANGES OF ADDRESS— By section 15 of “ Tlie Pharmacy Act,” 
every registered Pharmaceutical Chemist on changing his place of 
business is required to intimate the same to the Board. 
NEW ZEALAND. 
PHAEMACY BOARD OF NEW ZEALAND. 
The ordinary meeting of the Board took place on Friday, 
the first day of April, at the Board Office, Christchurch. 
Present— The President (Mr. Boss), Messrs. Bonnington and 
Skog. _ 
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and con- 
firmed. The following correspondence had been received 
since the last meeting ; — 
From the Editor of The Chemist and Drufjgist of Aastralatiia, 
which was postponed for consideration, at next meeting, 
before the full Board. 
From the Deputy Registrar, Wellington, asking if a candi- 
date, who had not arrived at the age of twenty-one years, 
would be admitted to the Examination. The application was 
refused in terms of the Act. 
The chemistry papers for the coming Examination were 
received from Mr. Pond, and approved of. 
The matter of applicant for registration, Mr. Harris, of 
Queensland, was dealt with ; applicant’s name would be 
placed on the register when the necessary declarations were 
completed. 
The Deputy Registrar in Auckland sent the names of six 
candidates for examination. 
From the Registrar-General, in reply to the Board re purg- 
ing the Pharmaceutical Register, directing the Board to for- 
ward registered letters to ^persons, supposed to be not still 
resident in the colony, observing the conditions set forth in 
the Pharmacy Act 1880. The Registrar of Deaths would 
communicate at a later date, giving the names of registered 
chemists deceased within a given time. 
The examination under the Board will take place on 
Wednesday, the twentieth day of April. Messrs. Bonnington 
.and Wilson will superintend the examination in Christchurch. 
The next ordinary meeting of the Board will be held on 
Friday, the sixth day of May. 
Trial of Dr. Russell. — Dr. Russell, who was charged 
with procuring abortion and attempted to commit suicide by 
swallowing a quantity of tincture of aconite and strychnine, 
was tried before the Supreme Court at Christchurch, on April 
13 and 14, and condemned to seven years’ penal servitude. 
(from our own correspondent.) 
Auckland, April 12, 1887. 
The examination of the new Pharmacy Board will he con- 
cluded before this letter appears in print, the official date being 
the third Wednesday in April, viz., the 20th. Some six candi- 
dates will present themselves in this town alone, and should 
they all succeed in satisfying the examiners, will tend to make 
qualified assistants a drug in the market. There must be in 
Auckland quite twenty apprentices, with an equal number of 
assistants. These apprentices, when they have served their 
time and have passed their examination, will, in some 
instances, open shops ; the population is not growing suffi- 
ciently quickly to warrant anything of the kind. That 
vacancies will occur among the ranks of the veterans, is, of 
course, always to be borne in mind, but, at the present time, 
“ opportunities for going into business ” do not seem likely to 
present themselves in this manner, and every well-wisher of 
the profession trusts that the day may be far distant when 
they will. 
It may safely be written that it is not the wish of ^ anyone 
out here to make pharmacy a close profession ; but it is dis- 
tinctly in the interests of the public that chemists should not 
multiply ad nauseam ; when there are more chemists shops 
than a town or district can support, it follows that the 
returns of each business will be so small that whatever busi- 
ness is done will be done on such economical principles that 
the value of the article supplied may suffer in therapeutic 
value. This, up to the present, is not the case here, but 
that it may come to pass is possible. ‘ Pyretic’ Lamplough, 
on the wrapper of his saline, quotes from Sterne about “ the 
two blades of grass,” tfcc., but it is quite a question if the 
reading had been two bottles of saline instead of two blades, 
Mr. Lamplough would have considered the sentiment quite so 
apposite. 
Competition is the soul of business, but in the profession 
of pharmacy there are certain modifying contingencies which 
must not be lost sight of. In the old country, where competi- 
tion is keen, it is possible to find chemists’ shops where the 
ordinary pharmaceutical appliances are almost unknowm, 
where concentrated infusions are the rule, water of the tap 
always used, and other equally economical methods. All this 
is the result of men opening shops with little or no capital, 
and even though the capital could be found, the neighbour- 
hood would not justify the outlay; for, it must be recollected 
that a qualified man will sooner or later get into business, 
capital or no capital, the result being a lowering of the phar- 
maceutical commercial standard, when ^ the number of 
chemists’ shops becomes too great. It is just possible that a 
trouble of this kind is threatening New Zealand, and, unless 
the Legislature passes an amended Pharmacy Act, the trouble 
will be upon us in a very few years. There are pharmacies 
in this colony that are worked by an army of apprentices, no 
assistants being employed, so that, should such a state of 
things become the rule rather than the exception, the quali- 
fied man will be driven to open a pharmacy that he may 
secure journeyman’s wages. 
No doubt, the shop windows in Melbourne have been ren- 
dered bright hy the coloured poster issued by the jurors of the 
Colonial Exhibition, to succesful exhibitors. Mr. T. B. Hill 
has been awarded one, and a silver medal for his exhibit of 
building stone obtained from his estate at Raglan. He has a 
block of it on exhibition at his pharmacy in Queen-street, 
forming the door-step of his premises, and, although it has 
had the traffic of a large business over it for years, it shows 
no signs of giving way ; it contains from 80 to DO per cent, of 
CaCOa 
Mr Edward Collins, who was nine years with Mr. Graves 
Aickin of Queen-street, and for the last four years as manager, 
left last month for New York. , 
Mr. Henton, resident manager for Ivempthorue, Prosser 
and Co., has returned from his Australian visit, and expresses 
himself’as much pleased with the pharmaceutical outlook on 
your side of the water. , . , 
Mr. Powell, of this city, is removing his pharmacy from 
Hobson-street to Karangahape-road, one of the busiest 
thoroughfares out of Queen-street. In this same thorough- 
fare, which, in its entire length, is, perhaps, three-eighths of a 
mile long, there are already three pharmacies, and Mr. Powell 
will make a fourth. 
