258 
THE SANDFORD TESTIMONIAL. 
It happens that the trade of a chemist is one actually requiring scientific know¬ 
ledge, and will require it more and more as the discoveries and investigations of 
those already engaged init proceed; therefore the trade does, on its higher and 
brighter side, border on a profession. 
Some of the provisions of the new Act may seem to involve an amount of 
precaution difficult to exercise. As to labelling even, although we believe no 
careful chemist would suffer laudanum to leave his shop without its name and 
the word “Poison ” being affixed to the bottle containing it, we can quite see 
the depreciation which that same word must suffer if it be applied indiscrimi¬ 
nately to all preparations of poppies. It is on such a point as this that we may 
hope for relief by an honest and hearty working together of the Privy Council 
and the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society; but this unity of action cannot 
be effected unless all those for whose regulation, and partly for whose benefit, 
the Act was passed, assist by obeying its provisions. It should be determined, 
as far as possible, what are in the eye of law the “ preparations ” of the forbidden 
poisons. Some chemists have inquired whether paregoric lozenges and syrup of 
red poppies are to be labelled “ Poison,” and we confess to a sympathy in their 
doubt. We believe, however, such difficulties will vanish in practice. 
A somewhat peculiar difficulty arises in Scotland. When the Bill came from 
the House of Lords to the Commons all duly “ qualified medical practitioners'" 
were exempted from the action of the first fifteen clauses; but by the substitu¬ 
tion of the word u Apothecary ” for u Medical Practitioner ” in the lower House, 
it becomes questionable whether in North Britain, where apothecaries are un¬ 
known, the surgeons can continue to compound their own medicines, if any 
poison be contained therein. Such a prohibition was never contemplated by the 
framers of the Bill, and we do not wonder at the alarm expressed on the subject 
beyond the Tweed. It would even, in some cases, act detrimentally in England 
now that many general practitioners take their qualification from the Colleges 
and not from the Hall. 
THE SANDFORD TESTIMONIAL. 
A report will be found in another part of this Journal of the proceedings 
which have been instituted for giving effect to a very generally expressed desire 
among Chemists and Druggists throughout the country that the services ren¬ 
dered by Mr. Sandford, President of the Pharmaceutical Society, in promoting 
the passing of the “ Pharmacy Act, 1868,” should receive some signal recogni¬ 
tion, which should indicate how highly those services are appreciated, and how 
important the benefits resulting from their successful application are considered 
to be. It is not too much to say that the passing of the Amended Pharmacy 
Act has been mainly effected through the persistent energy, the well-balanced 
judgment, the courteous bearing, the cool determination, and perfect good faith 
which, throughout a lengthened struggle, and under many trying circum¬ 
stances, have been manifested by the able leader to whom the Council of the 
Pharmaceutical Society have for five successive years entrusted the chief 
management of the important undertaking they entered upon in endeavouring 
to place the practice of pharmacy upon a better, safer, and sounder basis. 
Those who for so many years have looked to the object which has now been 
attained as the great desideratum, without which all their efforts or desires for 
the advancement of pharmacy were felt to be of small avail,—who have looked 
and longed, but have sometimes become faint-hearted, and ready to turn from 
the task of accomplishing what some even of the most experienced among them 
have thought to be hopeless, and all have seen to be surrounded with difficulties, 
—can but acknowledge the claims to special recognition of the man who, beyond 
