26 
PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS — SECTION R. 
put the hall-mark on analytical chemists, a reform which will, I hope, 
take place here as a matter of course in a few years. There are suffi- 
cient analytical chemists in these colonies possessing the highest quali- 
fications, who, if they took federal action in the way of instituting a 
system of examination and registration, could readily raise the standard 
of their profession. In the meantime I would suggest to analytical 
chemists that, by undertaking research work in connection with our 
indigenous vegetation, they have the meaus of setting the hall-markon 
themselves, and in this work they will certainly win scientific kudos , 
and perhaps pecuniary advantage at the same time. 
It is in the system of examination and registration already alluded 
to that the pharmaceutical chemist possesses such an advantage over 
his brother. 1 trust that the standard will continue to be raised 
instead of lowered, and these remarks are pertinent to the subject of 
my present address, because 1 believe that no body of men possesses 
such advantages for research in regard to the chemistry of our indi- 
genous vegetation (and drugs in particular) as do pharmaceutical 
chemists. In them the sciences of chemistry and botany are happily 
blended ; they are adepts at the methods for extracting the active 
principles of plants, and of applying reagents to them ; they are in close 
touch with the physician, and are thus in a position to secure adequate 
therapeutic tests of the preparations they may make, or the active 
principles they may isolate. Here is a grand work truly, and every 
successful research by a pharmaceutical chemist adds lustre to the 
profession to which he belongs. The status of pharmaceutical chemists 
happily does not depend upon the caprice of governments or organisa- 
tions ; they have it in their own hands to raise their profession to as 
high a pinnacle of public respect and recognition as they choose. I 
again refer to this subject in my remarks introductory to u Drugs,” 
as it is in this province or division of our indigenous vegetation that 
we hope to see the most brilliant achievements of the chemist. 
In this connection I would like to make a practical suggestion. 
Having shown what special advantages pharmaceutical chemists have 
for this work, I would point out that individual action would be 
enormously strengthened by a federal bond. Can we not have, for 
the Australasian Group, an organisation corresponding to the British 
Pharmaceutical Conference ? In the colonies we have fewer workers, 
and the distances are very much greater than in the old country ; it 
seems, therefore, that an independent Australasian Pharmaceutical 
Conference would be an inordinate tax on the purses and time of 
pharmaceutical chemists. I would suggest (and I do it on my own 
responsibility) that our pharmaceutical brethren take advantage of the 
organisation already existing in the Australasian Association for the 
Advancement of Science. Would it not be well to form, say, a 
pharmaceutical sub-section? In this way chemists could, with a 
minimum of expense and trouble, be brought together to discuss 
scientific and intercolonial questions. A most important matter would 
he the compilation of a list corresponding to the Bluo list of the 
British Pharmaceutical Conference. Some of the subjects of research 
I will indicate might perhaps be taken up, and individual members 
might undertake special items on the list, and so prevent important 
researches from being dealt with in a desultory manner or of being 
indefinitely postponed. 
