PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING PHARMACY. 
527 
false or fraudulent representation, be registered, or seek to be registered, 
be too shall be liable to imprisonment. And if, after the passing of this 
Act, any person who is not registered under the Pharmacy Act of 1852 or 
this Act, shall keep open shop for dispensing the prescriptions of duly qualified 
medical practitioners, he shall be liable to a penalty of five pounds ; and if any 
person who keeps open shop for compounding or selling drugs by retail shall 
falsely pretend that he is registered, or is a pharmaceutical chemist or chemist 
and druggist, he also shall be liable to a penalty of five pounds. The fees 
for examination and registration shall be payable to the Pharmaceutical 
^Society, which provides the working machinery for carrying out this Act; the 
penalties as the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury may direct. 
Such is the scope of the statutory clauses as far as regards examination 
■and registration, but then it is right that all persons should have a voice in 
their governing body; therefore, every person registered as a chemist and 
•druggist by virtue of examination shall be eligible for election as an Associate 
of the Pharmaceutical Society, and as such he shall be entitled to attend, take 
part in, and vote at all meetings of the Society. 
And to extend the benefit of the Benevolent Fund which has been esta¬ 
blished by the Society, and which can now only be administered to persons 
wdio are actually connected with the Society at the time of application, or to 
the widows or orphans of persons who were so connected up to the time of 
their death, it shall be lawful to relieve therefrom all persons who are, or ever 
have been, registered under the Pharmacy Act of 1852 or this Act. 
The rights and privileges of duly qualified medical practitioners shall in no 
way be affected by this Act. 
Here, then, is the Pharmacy Bill of 1864. Our readers will see that the only 
provision added since “the heads” of it were read at the Special General 
Meeting is the one which reserves to assistants the right of commencing 
business without undergoing examination; this has been added in compli¬ 
ance with the resolution passed at that meeting. The Bill provides for an 
efficient examination of future chemists, and thus ensures the safety of the 
public ; it protects the vested interests of men already engaged in the busi¬ 
ness (whether as principals or assistants), gives them a better position, and by 
enforcing the examination of all who are hereafter to enter, will improve the 
general condition of the trade. 
The two other bases of operation which we mentioned at starting, viz. the 
full and fair representation of the trade in the governing body, and the 
chartered rights of the Pharmaceutical Society, seem to be intimately con- 
. nected with each other and have been much considered in the Council; it is 
because these two points are so intimately connected that the Council has 
found some difficulty in dealing with them. The expression of opinion at 
the Special General Meeting of the 17th of March, certainly appeared to be 
in favour of admitting chemists and druggists to membership who are now in 
business on their own account, but who have not thought it wise to bear the 
heat and burden of the day of foundation; for whatever powers may be ob¬ 
tained now will be based upon the foundation which the Society has been 
consolidating during the last twenty-three years. But that Meeting was 
called for a special purpose, to consider the expediency of applying to Parlia¬ 
ment for an extended Pharmacy Act which should make the examination of fu¬ 
ture chemists compulsory instead of optional , therefore the Council could take 
no authority from that meeting as to the admission of members. Absentees 
might have said that no notice of such business was given*. The Council, al¬ 
though endowed with large powers, and bound to exercise its judgment, even 
in executing the wishes of the Society, must confess itself after all but a re¬ 
presentative body, holding in trust the rights, privileges, and honour of the 
