30G 
PROVINCIAL TRANSACTIONS. 
LEEDS CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
The Third Ordinary Meeting of the Association for the session, was held at the 
School of Art on Wednesday evening, December 9, I 860 ; the President, Mr. Harvey, 
in the chair. 
Mr. W. H. Bell, of York, was elected an Ordinary Member. 
The Library Committee reported the following donations to the Library during the 
past month, viz.—Mr. Smeeton, £1 ; Mr. Backhouse, 10s.; Mr. Kettlewell, 10s.; Mr. 
Stead, 10s.; Mr. B. Taylor, 10s.; Mr. Walker, 10s.; Messrs. Clarke, Bleasdale, Bell, and 
Co. (York), ‘ Miller’s Elements of Chemistry,’ in 3 vols., complete. 
The best thanks of the Association were awarded to the donors. 
The Committee had arranged that the occasion should serve the double purpose of 
being an ordinary monthly meeting of the Society, whilst it was also selected for the 
delivery, by Mr. Edward Thompson, of the introductory lecture of a course on Materia 
Medica, which he will continue upon each succeeding Monday evening. 
Mr. Thompson commenced by observing that as he had been requested to give his 
Introductory Lecture at an ordinary monthly meeting of the Association, he should 
think that it would be hardly respectful to the experienced druggists present, to take 
up much time with mere elementary matter, and should therefore branch out into topics 
of a general character, upon which he might not otherwise have touched, and which 
might be considered as somewhat remotely connected with Materia Medica. And to 
begin at some distance from the subject in hand, he should venture to make a few observa¬ 
tions on certain points relating to the present position of the Chemist and Druggist of 
this country. If his remarks should provoke a little temperate discussion at the end, 
he should not regret it, as truth might thus be elicited, which was his only object. 
He would therefore just glance at the position of the druggist in relation to— 1 st, the 
Law ; 2nd, the Medical Profession; and 3rd, the Pharmaceutical Society. And he 
would observe that such questions as were now proposed to be briefly discussed were 
interesting to the student, as well as to the man in business, because the former, as well 
as the latter, should have correct information about his position, and his relation to 
other classes of persons. 
1. The Law .—At present chemists and druggists were not recognized or protected 
by the law, any more than were other shopkeepers. It had been proposed that chemists 
should have certain privileges, and especially that they should have the exclusive right 
to sell drugs. Now this question would be viewed differently by different persons. 
Druggists themselves might naturally incline to the opinion that a monopoly of the 
business should be established, and that all others should be prevented from meddling 
with it, and much might be said in favour of this view. It might be urged that none 
but persons of some education, and who had been brought up to the habits of attention 
and sense of responsibility which characterize the respectable chemist and druggist, 
could sell potent drugs with safety to the public; and in particular, that all poisonous 
substances should be retailed only by such persons, and that such a regulation would be 
the best “ Poison Bill” that could be enacted. 
Strong as these arguments were, he was of opinion that the Legislature was not at 
all likely to be influenced by them. For, in the first place, the tendency of modern 
legislation was decidedly against monopolies, and in favour of free-trade. Some profes¬ 
sions, it was true, were still allowed to have exclusive privileges; that of law, for in¬ 
stance, but monopolies, formerly so numerous, had gradually been reduced to a very 
small number. 
If we wanted to know how the Legislature would probably treat any proposal for 
giving exclusive privileges to the druggist, we might obtain valuable information by ob¬ 
serving how they had deliberately acted in a similar case. The course of modern legis¬ 
lation on the medical profession was strictly in point. Before 1815 the members of that 
profession, at least in the country, had no exclusive privileges. In that year it was en¬ 
acted that no one should act as an apothecary in England unless he had a licence from 
the Apothecaries’ Company of London, the business of a chemist and druggist still re¬ 
taining all the rights that it previously possessed. Such continued to be the state of 
