LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
349 
in Montreal. His genial sociality endeared him to all, and the profuse expenditure with 
which he provided brilliant illustrations for his lectures make his absence much felt. 
Amongst our earliest lecturers were Drs. Inman and Nevins, and Professor Hamilton 
(our first teacher of Pharmacy). Although these notes have no pretension to historical 
completeness, I think I ought to remind you of our frequent indebtedness at later 
periods to Dr. Cuthbert Collingwood, Professor T. C. Archer, and our former President, 
Mr. H. Sugden Evans, now President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 
and to Mr. Nathan Mercer, of Montreal. 
The British Association will meet in Liverpool in the summer of next year, and this 
Society, which joined in the invitation, which they accepted, will be expected to share 
in the' preparations for their reception. Another Society, however, which has always 
met in the same towns, and nearly at the same times, as those selected by the former 
and more important Society, will meet at the beginning of the week in which the 
British Association assembles, and its special relation to most of us will, I hope, com¬ 
mand for it and its members our best efforts to promote its objects, and give to its 
members an hospitable reception,—I refer to the British Pharmaceutical Conference, 
which was established in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1863, and has just held its sixth meet¬ 
ing at Exeter, where many valuable papers were read, and opportunities afforded to the 
pharmacists of the kingdom to make those contributions to the common stock of know- 
ledge which our opportunities enable us to afford, and which the members of a liberal 
profession should supply. Such an Association has for many yeais existed in t e 
United States, to the general advantage of the members. The subscription to ours is . 
only live shillings per annum, and, besides the privilege of attending the meetings, and 
promoting a useful work, the members receive a small volume reporting its procedmgs, 
and will, in succeeding years, receive a ‘Yearbook of Pharmacy.’ One of the subjects 
discussed at its recent meeting was that of prices. It is very important that the tiue 
grounds on which our charges for our services and for our goods should be made, should 
be w T ell understood and followed. 
Upon the whole, I think we may assume that our special art and science is improving, 
and obtaining every year, in the estimation of the public, a higher position and a moie 
just appreciation. I believe that this advance will mainly be exactly proportionate to 
the ability and conscientiousness with which we devote ourselves to our proper duties ; 
and, I believe, the more we make it felt that it is by us that the dispensing of medicines 
is best performed, the more exclusively will the labour and profit fall to us As long 
as medical men look upon us as rivals, they will not regard us with much favour, the 
more especially as it cannot be denied that, for their proper duties, they have a qua 1 - 
fication which we have not. , . . , , , 
The division of duties amongst the members of the medical profession does not seem to 
be very clear, nor very settled, but one thing all agree in, and that is, that the dispensing o 
medicines should, as a rule, be confined to a class specially educated and devoted to it and 
who do not practise it as a subordinate and troublesome duty,—that class are called Che¬ 
mists and Druggists and Pharmaceutical Chemists ; the latter are also called Pharmaceu¬ 
tists and Pharmacists. I should prefer as briefer and more convenient, the name Phabmist 
which I formerly used at the suggestion of my friend Mr. Thomas Doming Hibbeit, of 
the Middle Temple, although the word Apothecary, as usually understood, is our proper 
designation. In Ireland the dispensers of medicine are still called Apothecaries, ai d 
the privilege of compounding prescriptions is by law confined to them; so that those 
who are qualified in England are not qualified in Ireland, and in a province of the same 
government, confessedly the poorer of the two, the education of the Pharinist includes 
surgery, medicine, and anatomy, which, in the remaining provinces of the empire are 
not deemed necessary. This is a most anomalous state of things, and a remedy is 
UF The imperial system of weights and measures now in use was established m 1826, 
long after the introduction into France of the metrical system, which no doubt received 
the consideration which was then thought to be due to it; although, however, it is evi¬ 
dent that changes in the standards should as much as possible be avoided a strong feel¬ 
ing has long existed in this country in favour of a decimal system, and, secondly, m 
favour of the French metrical system. ...... , i; , , ^ 0 PriTT , 
The second Report of the Standards Commission has just been published. The Com¬ 
missioners do not directly state so, but I understand them to be of opinion that the 
