THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 157 
vancement. These elements I trust we possess in an eminent degree, and so long as they 
exist, will our success, prosperity, and usefulness exist also. 
Before I undertake any remarks on the progress of pharmacy during the year just now 
passed, you must permit me to make some allusion to one or two subjects of more general 
interest which then excited the earnest attention, not only of every grade of the medical 
profession, but even of a considerable portion of the public, namely, the new British 
Pharmacopoeia, and so-called. Accidental Poisoning, neither of which has lost anything 
of its importance, and at the risk of somewhat tedious repetition I must refer to one or 
both on this occasion. 
A work like the British Pharmacopoeia, which was an amalgamation and concentra¬ 
tion of three sets of formulae issued by three distinct medical bodies, was not likely to be 
presented to the profession and the public without a considerable amount of opposition 
and virtuous indignation on the part of a large number of those affected by the change, 
and whose rule of practice had been in accordance with one or another of the three 
hitherto independent schools of medicine ; and such was the case. Whatever were the 
merits of the new work, and however desirable it might be to reduce the practice of the 
United Kingdom, and, as far as possible, its dependencies, to one uniform code or stand¬ 
ard, the feeling of surprise and vexation at the apparently wholesale slaughter of vested 
interests was at first very great; but judging from the little that is now heard of the 
subject, one can but arrive at the conclusion, either that the new regulations laid down 
are widely ignored, or that chemists, both wholesale and retail, are gradually falling in 
with them. I hope it is the latter; for so far as my limited means of judging allow me 
to form an opinion on the subject, the difficulties are not so great as at first sight ap¬ 
peared. On one point at least the Medical Council seem to have been unjustly judged 
in respect to the form in which the work was issued: I allude to the publication of the 
bare formulae for preparations, without note or comment on their properties and doses. 
But those reviewers who have laid so much stress on this apparent deficiency, seem to 
have ignored the fact that the Pharmacopoeia itself has always be'en published in the same 
way. They have failed to distinguish in reality between the Pharmacopoeia and its so- 
called “authorized translation.” Whether it would not have been politic on the part of 
the Medical Council to have authorized a similar annotated edition, it is not for us to 
determine. Such a course would have greatly facilitated its general adoption, and have 
saved much adverse criticism; still, I repeat this fault must not be attributed to the 
Pharmacopoeia itself. 
As you are aware, the Pharmacopoeia is at present under revision by a committee 
whose names are a sufficient guarantee that the work will be performed in a manner 
satisfactory alike to the prescriber, the pharmaceutist, and the purely scientific man ; 
and I anticipate that the new edition will show that the existing volume contains the 
nucleus of the best medical code which we have yet seen. Probably it will be found that 
the chemical notation and some other matters of abstract science which vary with the 
changing opinions of scientific men will be entirely omitted. The physicians will have 
greater liberty in the use of the old and convenient apothecaries’ symbols for grains, 
scruples, and drachms, and, with the general revision of the work and the removal 
of many existing inconsistencies, we shall have the insection of formulae for a large 
number of generally prescribed remedies for which it is most important there should be 
recognized galenical preparations. 
Speaking of the Pharmacopoeia at home, we naturally turn to the advance of phar¬ 
macy in the colonies, which has led to the proposal of the Indian Medical Board to issue 
a separate work for India; this is now in a fair way towards publication, and I am in¬ 
formed by my friend Mr. D. Hanbury, whose extensive knowledge of Indian materia 
medica will find ample exercise in the part he^as been called upon to take in its prepara¬ 
tion, that Dr. Waring, late of Travancore, surgeon to the Madras army, author of a 
‘ Manual of Materia Medica und Therapeutics,’ as well as of numerous papers on Indian 
drugs, has been appointed editor, a committee being at the same time named to assist 
in the work. Its object and aim is to supply medical men and pharmaceutists in 
India, as well as the medical students whose education may be conducted in the go¬ 
vernment colleges, with a mass of information respecting the more useful drugs', inclu¬ 
ding their method of preparation and administration. Particular attention will be 
given to the introduction into notice of the more important drugs of India, hitherto 
little employed except by native practitioners. As it will be necessary in most cases to 
