366 
DUNDEE CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
the members, and the Association certainly sets out under most favourable auspices. A 
very prominent feature in the proceedings was an Inaugural Address by the President, 
Mr. Russell. The Address was listened to throughout with the utmost attention, and 
the expressions of approval made at the close were of the most hearty description, many 
of the members expressing a hope that they might see the Address in print, so that they 
might afterwards benefit by what was at first simply meant to be a few introductory 
remarks. 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT. 
At the last meeting of the chemists and druggists in Dundee, called for the purpose 
of electing office-bearers to conduct the affairs of your society, you were pleased to 
appoint me to the office of chairman, accompanied with a request that I should, at your 
next meeting, deliver something in the shape of an inaugural Address. However in¬ 
adequate I feel to engage in such a task, I did not consider myself altogether justified 
in declining the proposal; my principal difficulty in starting was to find a subject on 
which to address you ; after thinking over various things, it occurred to me that as 
in common life it might be advantageous to take a retrospect of the years that are gone 
by, in order that we may benefit in future from the experience of the past, and there¬ 
fore in any remarks I may have to make, I shall confine myself to a retrospect of the 
last fifty years, chiefly in reference to the chemists and druggists in Scotland, con¬ 
trasting their position at that time. Coincident with this idea, I was somewhat amused 
the other day when I observed in a Glasgow newspaper that at a dinner given by the 
medical faculty there, Dr. Fleming, the President, adopted the same theme to dilate 
on ; he mentioned “ that there had been greater advancement in medical and chemical 
science within the last half-century than had been made since the days of Hippocrates.” 
If such improvement has taken place in medical science during that period, although we 
are by do means what we ought to be; or expect to be, I do think I may fairly put in 
a claim for improvement on the part of the chemists and druggists in Scotland. 
That there has been great improvement in our ranks in the way and manner in which 
our business is now conducted is manifest, and cannot for a moment be disputed, and 
I believe I shall be able to establish this in the few remarks I have to make. It is now 
rather more than half a century since I began to handle the pestle and mortar; the best 
part of my experience was acquired in London, where I resided rather more than two 
years, until like many others I lost my health ; my medical adviser, as a last resource, 
ordered me to return to my native place, Elgin; he was right. I got rapidly better. 
After this, early in 1818, having nothing particular to occupy my attention, I resolved 
on a roaming expedition through the principal towns in Scotland, beginning at Inver¬ 
ness, the capital of the Highlands; there was only one solitary druggist there, who had 
commenced business a'year or two before; all the way from this to Aberdeen, some¬ 
where about 100 miles, embracing four counties in which there are not less than nine 
or ten considerable towns besides villages, there was not one druggist; a few common 
articles of medicine could only be had at some small dealers who kept sundries, and 
who were generally called merchants. I may give you an instance to show the mise¬ 
rable state in which the dispensing of medicine was practised at that time in the North. 
A very canny woman, the wife of one of these general dealers, who turned her atten¬ 
tion to prescribing, with the aid of Dr. Buchan,—also favoured by the prestige of 
having a brother who had been a medical man, soon became famous for prescribing and 
giving advice in women and children’s complaints; her fame spread far and wide, and 
great faith was placed in her skill. I should not wish to have been responsible for 
the correctness of her prescriptions, as the following will show. I was one day stand¬ 
ing outside of the counter when a man from the country came to consult her about a 
sore finger; she examined it very minutely, and, with a wise look, proposed to dress 
the finger with balsam capivi. Such was the state of matters in all the towns I passed 
through. These are now abundantly supplied with druggists, some of the towns having 
no less than four or five good shops. In Aberdeen I found several very respectable 
druggists, rather sharp men of business, as all the Aberdonians generally are. From 
thence I proceeded direct to Edinburgh; there I found the old school in all its glory, 
with the exception of an establishment, recently opened, called the Edinburgh Apo¬ 
thecaries’ Hall. The proprietors were two young men, sons of a respectable physician 
in Leith; who commenced under the most favourable auspices. This establishment began 
