THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 
G05 
in our foundation ; -who saw at once that to maintain union we must avoid all in¬ 
terference with matters of trade, to obtain respect we must work simultaneously 
for the public benefit as well as our own. 
I trust hereafter 1864 will be regarded as an epoch in the annals of our Society. 
I may perhaps be too sanguine, but I must confess that to me the attainment of 
the great object for which we have so long worked seems now to be more nearly 
within reach than at any previous time of our existence. Various circumstances 
have combined to forward our views ; it is for us to apply them. In 1841, it was 
asserted by a few that the public safety required a class of specially educated 
men for the dispensing of medicines; but the dispensers themselves had no cen¬ 
tral board to which could be entrusted the power of determining the nature and 
extent of the necessary qualification, or the responsibility of ascertaining whether 
or no a man, desiring to commence business as a dispenser, possessed it. It was 
therefore proposed to put us under the control of an authority having at that 
time little sympathy, and perhaps nothing in common with us. To this we ob¬ 
jected, not to the principle enunciated, but to the means of carrying it into 
operation. Recognizing the necessity for qualification, we at once set to work 
to supply the want. T here was then no public school of pharmacy; we formed 
one. There was no organized union of chemists and druggists to serve as a 
starting-point; we formed a Society, on as broad a basis as might be, by uniting 
all worthy men then in the business who chose to come in, but fixing an educa¬ 
tional test for all future members. Here then was the beginning of a Board of 
Examiners, formed of men in the trade, who could best judge of the requirements 
of the trade. And up to 1852, we worked this machinery on the purely volun¬ 
tary principle. Then we obtained—not all we wanted, but an instalment,—a 
Parliamentary recognition of the principle we had adopted, and the means we 
had devised for its promotion. Our examination was made compulsory on those 
who chose to assume a certain title, but not on all who practised pharmacy. 
We had passed ten years of probation, and then received limited powers from 
the Legislature. And, Gentlemen, our exercise of those powers since 1852 has 
placed us in the position we enjoy now,— the one recognized Board of Pharmacy 
of Great Britain , approved and aided by the higher branches of the medical 
profession, encouraged and consulted by various departments of the government, 
and now becoming generally known and appreciated by the public. The 
Medical Council see that pharmacy is a branch of their profession, that it is 
desirable that the dispensing of prescriptions should be confined to qualified 
persons, and that our Board of Examiners provides a means of testing that 
qualification. 
I need scarcely remind you that in the amendments which were proposed in the 
Medical Act, due regard was given to the Pharmaceutical Society. We have 
been charged with coquetting with the Medical Council in this matter, because 
our own position teas safe. In reply, I am not ashamed to say that I do regard 
this placing of the Pharmaceutical Chemists, who have, as a class, been created by 
us, as a matter of great congratulation, a testimony to the efficiency of our system 
and a fair acknowledgment of our labour ; but I entirely deny that this Society 
had any share in the proposition of the committee of the Medical Council. There 
were points in that proposition to wdiich we could never have assented. It has 
been abandoned, but gathering the opinion of that Council, as we can now do 
by the publication of their debates, I believe the question is only in abeyance, 
that if we do not forestal them they will ultimately proceed to legislation; and in 
that case, seeing the object is to secure the one thing for which our Society was 
established and has ever worked, however much we might feel it our duty to 
modify their details, we could not oppose their principle. I am confirmed in my 
opinion that this question is only postponed, by an extract from the Minutes of 
the Medical Council, of May 7th, the last day of their session :— 
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