576 
PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING PHARMACY. 
No doubt there will be men who think this is going too far, who would prefer 
the plan suggested by the Medical Council and the Poison Bills,—that of ex¬ 
amining all who had not been examined, whether in business or not, but this 
view evidently is not taken by the Council and would hardly be sanctioned by 
the Legislature; and there will probably be many who think that the imoposed 
measure does not go far enough, and would recommend that chemists and 
druggists hitherto unconnected with the Society should be admitted without 
examination to its membership and privileges. It is said, in the first place, 
that they should have a full share in the management of the body by which 
they are governed. Now there would be force in this if they were governed 
at all, but this is not the case. They are registered, and every privilege they 
possess is assured to them, but they are in no way governed or regulated or 
interfered with. The Pharmaceutical Society has no power over them, and 
wishes to have none. They subscribe nothing to it and are in no way con¬ 
nected with it, and to claim for them a right to regulate the affairs and the 
government of the members of the Society,—a society to which they do not 
contribute and have even refused to belong,—is just one of those clap-traps 
Avhich will never have much weight with thinking men. A more plausible 
measure has been advocated,—to make them eligible for membership on pro¬ 
duction of certificates satisfactory to the Council; but to this there are in¬ 
superable objections. To give the Council the decision whether a man should 
be received or no, without any test to help them, would lead to such charges 
of favouritism and injustice and in spite of all the care they could use, to so 
much that was anomalous and unfair, that either the door must be opened to 
all, or the selection given up as practically impossible. And if it were other¬ 
wise, such a proceeding would be open to this fatal objection, that it would 
be an abandonment of the principle steadily maintained by the Society, and 
openly declared to the public and to the G-overnment when the Pharmacy Act 
was passed. To shut the door after a given date to all but examined men, 
was what the Act bade them do, and what they promised to do by all their 
proceedings, and by the lips of the late Mr. Bell and all others who publicly 
spoke for them. In the faith of this, the public are slowly learning that the 
name “ Pharmaceutical Chemist ” is from year to year growing to designate 
educated and examined men. The Grovernment is opening to them, as worthy, 
the various offices in its gift. The medical profession are acknowledging their 
qualification, and to deliberately knock all this down for the sake of gaining a 
few outsiders who have never cared to belong to the Society, until they now 
see its substantial benefits, would be to lower ourselves irretrievably in the 
estimation of all; to be palpably unjust to nine hundred men who have with 
cost and pains passed an examination ; to show ourselves unfit to be trusted 
with the confidence of the Legislature ; and all this for the sake of a few 
guineas a year, would be an act of which it would be difficult to say whether 
the folly or the breach of faith were the most unpardonable. 
I quite agree with Mr. Dickenson in his opinion expressed at the special 
meeting, and would urge the Society not on any account to sacrifice the po¬ 
sition they have gained to any clamour from any parties, and least of all to 
the clamour of those who have always done their utmost to oppose and to 
injure it. I am, Sir, yours obediently, 
Opifex. 
to the editor of the pharmaceutical journal. 
Sir,—As it has been determined to print in your next number the proposed 
new Pharmacy Bill, I feel it desirable to express to your readers my convic¬ 
tion that the Bill will require important alterations. For my own part, I re¬ 
gret that it should even be submitted for the discussion of the members and 
