* 
LEEDS CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 307 
things for more than forty years. Occasionally during these years the Apothecaries’ 
Company prosecuted some illegal practitioner; but in general the law was not enforced 
Sometimes an unlucky physician or surgeon, highly educated, but who had not been so 
fortunate as to seek the licence of the Company, was fixed upon for prosecution, while 
notorious quacks were quietly allowed to accumulate their gains, to the great scandal of 
the profession. At last the Apothecaries’ Company entirely ceased to perform the thank¬ 
less office of prosecutor for the profession, and again every one did that which was right 
in his own eyes. Great was the cry for medical reform, and much need there was for it. 
For some time all was confusion, some demanding one kind of reform and some another. 
At last the profession became more unanimous. All expected that exclusive privileges 
would be conceded. But when the matter came to be discussed in Parliament, it was 
found that the Lords and Commons, who sympathized with the public rather than with 
any professional section of it, were in no mood to grant any more monopolies. They 
left the Apothecaries’ Act where it was, a dead letter, and passed a new law, framed on 
a new principle, which was, to certify to the public who were properly qualified practi¬ 
tioners, and then leave every one at liberty to employ whom he would; with this proviso, 
that the Government itself in its vaccination, poor-law, sanitary, or medico-legal depart¬ 
ments, should employ none but those who were registered as well qualified medical 
men. When it was added that the Act appointed a Council for the regulation of medical 
education, and the publication of a Pharmacopoeia, and provided for the speedy punish¬ 
ment of all who should untruthfully give themselves out to the public as legally regis¬ 
tered practitioners, we became acquainted with the whole spirit of the last example of 
legislation in a department bearing the strictest analogy to our own. 
From this illustrative case then, what could we learn as to the probable future legis¬ 
lation for chemists and druggists? This, that Government might devise some system of 
registering all who were qualified to conduct the business with safety to the public, and 
might give to such persons a title by which the public might judge of the qualifications 
of its holders, preventing, at the same time, unqualified persons from assuming the title. 
And as the people of this country in the exercise of their vaunted liberty appeared to cherish 
the right to consult ignorant pretenders to the art of healing, so they might wish to pre¬ 
serve the privilege of obtaining their drugs of those who knew nothing of their proper¬ 
ties, and the Legislature would probably allow them to continue to enjoy their liberty. 
But the Legislature would have to distinguish between the qualified and the unquali¬ 
fied by an examination. If so, it behoved young men, both as they would desire to con¬ 
duct their own business with respectability, and as they would wish to pass such an exa¬ 
mination with credit, to prepare for the future by diligently availing themselves of this 
and all other opportunities of becoming acquainted with Materia Medica. 
Two conclusions were then arrived at:—1st, that examinations, which were now 
optional and honorary, would probably at no distant period be so far compulsory that no 
one could attain a respectable position in the business without passing them; and, 2ndly, 
that such examinations should be diligently prepared for. 
2. The Medical Profession .—After remarking on the necessity of a knowledge of ma¬ 
teria medica and posology for the compounder of prescriptions, connected, as such work 
was, with the restoration of health and the preservation of life, he (Mr. Thompson) pro¬ 
ceeded to observe that there was another view of the relation between the druggist and 
the practice of physic, which could hardly be left unnoticed on that occasion, namely, 
what was called counter-prescribing. One-sided views had often been taken on this sub¬ 
ject. Sometimes a surgeon wrote to the ‘ Lancet,’ denouncing some neighbouring drug¬ 
gist who deprived him of patients, without stating at the same time that he himself was 
keeping an open shop, poaching upon the domain of the druggist, and throwing down 
those external distinctions by means of which the public might judge between the surgeon 
and the druggist. Sometimes a London Pharmaceutical Chemist, whose business con¬ 
sisted in preparing medicines according to the prescriptions of physicians, told us in the 
‘ Pharmaceutical Journal ’ how very improper it was for any druggist to act both as pre¬ 
server and dispenser, and how carefully all articles bearing upon the action of drugs in the 
cure of disease should be excluded from the Journal. Other druggists, living in country 
towns where there were no hospitals, and where medical advice could not be cheaply 
purchased, thought themselves compelled, by the necessities of their position and the con¬ 
stant demands of their customers, to exercise what little knowledge of medicine they 
possessed, and consequently prescribed in slight cases—sometimes, indeed, undertaking to 
