528 
TRE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST 
October 5, 1895 
medicice acd pharmacy, as well as an expert on pharma- 
ceutical education. It would be ungracious not to recognise 
and acknowledge the very friendly tone of Dr. RDberts’s ex- 
pressions in regard to pharmacists. Like his Welsh 
countrymen, we have been for generations the down-trodden 
and oppressed branch of the medical profession, so that 
words of sympathy, which seem to have a genuine ring 
about them, from a member of the upper class are appre- 
ciated. 
But the professor’s sj^mpathy — genuine though we fully 
believe it to be — is limited to words when he comes 
to deal with the actual living part of our business. 
He finds almost endless vistas of beauty in the con- 
stitution, the history, and the Executive of the 
Pharmaceutical Society, from the “pleasant, attractive, and 
winning manner,” of the President down to the charmingly 
perfect examinations which he seems sure the students he 
addresses must admire as much as he does. He encourages 
them to hope that through these portals they may get out of 
the drug-business and, even become professors or teachers 
or prepare themselves for some other “ allied scientific and 
professional pursuits.” But Dr. Koberts remembers that this 
is not likely to be the luck of all ; and it may perhaps have 
occurred to him. that most of those young men who study 
pharmacy and submit themselves to the pharmaceutical ex- 
aminations do so with the most explicit intention of becoming 
pharmacists. It is a fact that there are many other men 
besides the President of the Pharmaceutical Society who 
were never ashamed of their business or thought it deroga- 
tory to stand behind a counter dealing with people in an 
honourable and upright manner. Professor Koberts quotes 
that proud apologia, it appears, from one of Mr. Carteighe’s 
speeches, and seems to regard it as a very heroic declaration. 
But if it is, what heroes those of us must be who have stood 
behind a counter all our lives and never dreamed that we 
were doing anything worthy of boasting about ! Many of 
us would be only too happy if we had a counter to stand 
behind. 
In criticising one or two sections of Professor Roberts’s 
address, we by no means depreciate it as a whole. On the 
contrary, it seems to us, as an address to students mainly, 
an exceptionally wise and good one. The course of “stewed 
calendar” is, we presume, inevitable in such an address, and 
the advice, if sound, must needs have been offered before. 
But the calendar part is not indigestible, and the advice is 
couched in kind, earnest, and pleasant words, and is spiced 
with pretty turns of expression which will make it remem- 
bered. But when Dr. Roberts comes to lecture us on our 
relations towards the medical profession, he rather excites 
our combativeness. Not that there is any tone of aggres- 
siveness or even of patronage in his lecture. Far from ib. 
But the doctor evidently holds strong opinions, which we 
do not think would bear a strict cross-examination if 
one might administer it. He objects, for instance, to 
what he calls “ irresponsible pharmacy.” So do we. But 
he apparently means by this phrase the sale of drugs to the 
public for them to use at their discretion. He is indefinite, 
and would probably say his strictures only apply to strong 
drugs, to new drugs, and to drugs which (as he thinks) 
should only be administered under medical supervision. We 
should all agree with this up to a point ; but to be of any 
use the line of demarcation should be very distinctly drawn 
when such comments are made. How Dr. Roberts would 
schedule the drugs which should only be administered under 
medical supervision may be gathered from his sweeping 
denunciation of the prescribing chemist. For him, he says, 
“ I must unhesitatingly and emphathically declare there is 
no excuse whatever.” “ He is certain to do infinite harm in 
a variety of ways.” “ I earnestly exhort you from the very 
outset steadfastly to resist every temptation to resort to such 
a practice, and not to be led, under any circumstances, into 
what is an unfair and illegal competition with the medical 
profession.” “ To treat patients merely on their own state- 
I ment that they are suffering from indigestion, neuralgia, 
cough, palpitation, or what not, for which they re- 
quire a remedy, is absolutely wrong in principle and 
disastrous in its consequences.” “ You can only be working 
in the dark, for you know no thing about the actual nature 
of the case, and are utterly incompetent to investigate it» 
even if you tried.” With all respect to the eminent author 
of these assertions, we do not see how they can be charac- 
terised by any other English word than that of nonsense. A 
person has a cough, a headache, a stomach-ache, or some 
other uncomfortable symptom which has been experienced 
by bis fellow-creatures of the human race fifty thousand 
million times before. But he is not to apply the well-known 
remedy himself, even though he has bought a medical book 
to teach him what it is ; and the chemist and druggist is 
not to help him because that would be “ an unfair and illegal 
competition with the medical profession.” Nor must he, as 
it appears afterwards, go to a qualified medical man, who 
would charge him a figure which would make you blush if 
mentioned. This sort of talk would have more basis to it 
if doctors were, as a rule, more uniformly successful in the 
treatment of disease than they are. Let them make them- 
selves independent of the competition they complain of by 
convincing the intelligent public that their guinea article is 
so much superior to the sixpennyworth or shillingswortb 
supplied by the chemist. 
LEPROSY IN ENGLAND. 
A FEW months ago we reported the death of the sole remain- 
ing leper in the British Islands. He lived and died at Lisburn, 
in Ireland. During the Middle Ages 225 leper-hospitals were 
established in the British Islands — 22 of them in Ireland, 19 
in Scotland, and the rest in England and Wales. Follow- 
ing the custom which was in existence at the dawn of 
history, our forefathers, in the establishment of these lazar- 
houses, are supposed to have adopted the principle of 
isolation, and it is natural for the modern mind to suppose 
that through isolation the horrid disease was stamped out. 
Dr. George Newman has written an essay, which received the 
first prize from the National Leprosy Fund, to prove the 
contrary, and it is diflicult to gainsay his arguments, albeit 
they are based upon Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson’s well-known 
fish-theory. The historical facts are worth looking into. 
Leprosy is supposed to have existed in Egypt as early as 
3500 B c., but it was not until 60 b c. that the disease 
appeared in England, and we have few records about it for 
500 years thereafter, when lazar-houses began to be esta- 
blished throughout England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, 
followed by organisations to stop the scourge ; and right 
up to the end of the sixteenth century there were in our 
country special arrangements for the isolation and main- 
tenance of lepers. Until Henry VIII. brought the hand of 
reform upon these institutions (reform with him being an- 
other way of confiscating the endowments), most of them 
were supported and ruled by the Church. In principle they 
aimed at complete isolation, the hope being that this would 
result in stamping out the disease. Both national law and 
local regulations controlled the actions of lepers. The follow- 
ing is an example of the regulations which were in force in 
hospitals : — 
That those who were infected were to humble themselves below all other 
men. 
That they should wear a habit suitable to their infirmities— viz., a tunio 
