OF TIIE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 
555 
accomplished work ; and that, to a certain point, is true. One good, however, 
may arise from surveying bygones,—they stand forth as guides for the future, 
and encourage us to persevere in the same course. They show us hovy union 
has been preserved, and to the more thoughtful they make it clear how easily it 
might have been rendered impossible. It is for these reasons. Gentlemen, that 
I always look anxiously for a good gathering at our annual meeting. 
But I spoke just now of unsettled questions in existence twelve months ago, 
and you will naturally say, Are they settled now ? You will conclude at once 
that I am alluding to the proposed legislation for the future regulation of che- 
mists and druggists, of which you have heard so much during the last four 
years ; and those of you who know the difficulties in the way of settling that 
question will not be surprised when I say that it is still unsettled. In saying 
this, however, I say it with unabated confidence in our ultimate success. We 
have overcome, I believe all difficulties in the trade, and in doing so I think we 
have made no further concessions to those who have stood aloof from our Society 
than it is fair to give to men who have a vested interest in a trade with which 
you propose, to some extent, to interfere. Not that we shall in any way inter¬ 
fere with those already engaged in the business; but I think it is desirable to 
attract such men to our union,—desirable, because by doing so we shall aug¬ 
ment our power of advancement, and desirable because it was originally in¬ 
tended that the Pharmaceutical Society should embrace them all. I remember 
that resolutions on this subject w r ere passed at our last meeting, and you will 
find that the Council has worked in accordance with those resolutions. But, 
Gentlemen, it is not simply in the trade that we have worked. We have ob¬ 
tained the assent of Government to a Bill founded on the Report of the Select 
Committee of the House of Commons. You all know the course of the present 
Session in the Commons; it has been almost entirely devoted to great party 
questions, to the utter exclusion of legislation. Feeling that the Report I have 
mentioned came from the Commons, we naturally felt that the initiation of any 
new Bill might properly be expected from that House also. Yarious Members 
of Parliament who would, if the state of business in the House of Commons had 
permitted, have brought forward the question at once, will now, whenever it 
comes before them, support it-. But we have friends elsewhere, and Earl Gran¬ 
ville, with whom we had much communication last year, has now undertaken 
the charge of the Bill; indeed, I have the gratification of announcing to you 
that it was read a first time in the House of Lords last night. 
We may, or we may not, fiually succeed during the present Session. One 
aid to success is, I think, a predetermination to achieve it; and although I can¬ 
not now say, as I should like to do, that the Pharmacy Act has been extended, 
and that hereafter no man will be able to practise as a chemist and druggist 
who has not proved his ability to do so with safety to the public, I do say em¬ 
phatically that we have advanced our object most materially,—that, having- 
brought the whole trade into unanimity of opinion, and the heads of both par¬ 
ties in the senate to our side, our object must in due time be accomplished ; if 
not in this Session, we shall only fail through certain political embarrassments 
which have made it a sort of common understanding that ordinary legislation 
shall halt until a new Parliament can be called together. 
Gentlemen, when I think of efforts to be made for the advancement of phar¬ 
macy and the better qualification of pharmaceutists, my mind naturally reverts 
to Jacob Bell ; and last night, when I had the honour to receive on your 
behalf all the kind and valued friends to our institution, I had within sight 
of me two unfinished prints from the admirable likeness of him taken scarce 
a month before his death by his friend Sir Edwin Landseer. To those of you 
who merely passed through that room, that, sketchy picture might not be very 
striking; to me it was constantly present. Perhaps I thought of the pleasure 
