THE CENSUS RETURNS RELATING TO PHARMACY. 
383 
by which (following the precedent of the 1 Apothecaries Act') the legitimate 
interests of those already in business should be protected, and proper provisions 
made for rendering the examinations of future chemists compulsory instead of 
optional .” This requisition bears the signatures of about three hundred of the 
most respectable and influential members of our Society, and is framed in so 
honest and liberal a spirit that it deserves and will, we hope, obtain very careful 
consideration. 
THE CENSUS EETUENS EELATING TO PHAEMACY. 
In the discussion of questions affecting the interests of the body of chemists 
and druggists in this country, it has frequently been asked, how many indi¬ 
viduals are there belonging to this class who are engaged in business on their 
own account ? Statements have been made at different times representing the 
numbers, in some instances as low as six or eight thousand, and in others as 
high as forty thousand. It may be recollected that when the Juries Act was 
under discussion in the House of Commons, the claim made on behalf of the 
body of chemists and druggists to be exempted from serving on juries, was 
opposed by members of the Government on the ground that the country could 
not afford to dispense with the services of some forty thousand intelligent men 
of business, the chemists having been estimated at this number by those who 
represented their interests. 
The members of the Pharmaceutical Society were a recognized, educated, and 
smaller number, and to them the privilege asked for was granted. On subse¬ 
quent occasions it has frequently been represented, by persons pretending to 
be well informed upon the subject, that the Pharmaceutical Society contains 
but a small proportion of those who are engaged in the practice of pharmacy 
throughout the country. The last estimate of the total number of chemists 
and druggists that we have seen, put them at thirty thousand, while the mem¬ 
bers of the Pharmaceutical Society do not much exceed two thousand. But 
it may be asked, what authority is there for these statements ? Are there no 
authorized returns that will supply reliable information upon a point of so 
much importance in the discussion of questions now pending P It may be 
answered that the census returns afford us the information required, in a 
perfectly reliable form. These returns are before us, and we propose to give 
such extracts as will place the question definitively at rest. 
The population of England and Wales, as taken by the census of 1861, 
was 20,228,497, wdiile the number as taken at the previous census, in 1851, 
was 18,054,170; the increase during the ten years from 1851 to 1861 having- 
been at the rate of 12 per cent., or 1T41 per cent, annually. 
The present population of England and Wales may then be given in round 
numbers at twenty millions, and to minister to the medical wants of this 
population it appears that there are 38,441 persons engaged, or preparing to 
engage, in different departments of the practice of medicine. Thus the 
Eegistrar General in his report states—• 
“ The medical sub-order comprises 38,441 persons, of whom 35,995 are men 
and 2446 are women; 14,415 physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, are at 
the head of the list; 3566 medical assistants and students, 1567 dentists, 
and 16,026 chemists and druggists, including apprentices and assistants (3388 
of the age 10-20), follow. Then there are of men cuppers 10, officers of 
medical societies and agents 21, corn-cutters 56, professors of hydropathy 
and homoeopathy 27, herb doctors and patent medicine vendors 92, 82 medical 
botanists, 50 galvanists, 12 mesmerists, 21 bone-setters, 22 quack doctors, so 
returned, and 2 cancer doctors, besides others. The women consist chiefly 
of druggists, 388, and midwives 1913.” 
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