BRISTOL PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION - . 
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The second is, “ The sleeping dragon powder, for children afflicted with pain in the 
bowels, general fever, flatulence, pains in the head with fever, vomiting and purging, 
also for convulsions and fits when the child writhes about and distorts itself m great 
degree to the peril of its life, rolling the eyes and twisting the ne* : take a little ot 
the powder and blow it up the nose, and, when the child sneezes, it will rapidly recover. 
The civil and ingenious Mr. Yaon respectfully presents this medicine also. ’ 
Much more might be written as to the history of pharmacy m the elder world, but 
I must leave this for other and abler pens, and pass on to notice very shortly the posi¬ 
tion of our profession amongst the modern nations of Europe, both as an introduction 
and a contrast to the more important and personally interesting portion ot my sub¬ 
let namely the past, present, and future of pharmacy in our native land. 
And first 5 1 take Turkey, as the condition of the science in the Ottoman empire 
seems to me the most unsettled and irregular. _ . . 
No efficient law exists, unless of very recent introduction, for the regulation either 
of medicine or pharmacy, and any person may practise either, at their own sweet will, 
regardless alike of their own fitness and of the lives of the unhappy forks. 
A large number of men, most of whom have been assistants to German or foreign 
physicians, practise as druggists and doctors, under the name of “ Hekms. _ -de¬ 
manding payment in advance and a large deposit on account of future services, it 
there is the prospect of a lengthened illness, they fatten upon the credulity of the ign - 
rant, and, occasionally have received sums amounting to £400 or £o00 of our m n y 
^op ^ sm ale cure. 
Boxes? bottles, and drawers, entirely innocent of labels, many of them as empty as 
the heads of their owners, serpents and reptiles displayed m the windows or hung 
from the roof of the little shops, scores of which may be seen in the streets ot Constan¬ 
tinople —the pharmacy (save the mark) is a fair index to the character of the ignorant 
quack who keeps it, and whose sole object seems to be to extort as many piastres from 
his victims as they possess. . , . , 
Some such a subject must have been in Shakespeare s mind when he wiote Ins de¬ 
scription of the Apothecary in Mantua, and which, familiar as it is, it seems impos¬ 
sible to omit:— 
“ I do remember an Apothecary, 
And hereabout he dwells, which late I noted 
In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows, 
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks ; 
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; 
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
An alligator stuffed, and other skins 
Of ill-shaped fishes, and about his shelves 
A beggarly account of empty boxes, 
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds ; 
Bemnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, 
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.” 
I observe that a correspondent of the ‘ Chemist and Druggist,’ writing from Stain- 
boul only last month, speaks of the Turkish pharmacists in terms which ead me k) 
infer that their greed of gain is as great as ever; but, at the same time, theie is evi¬ 
dence of a vast advance in scientific knowledge, as the metric system of weights 
and measures is to be introduced into the Ottoman empire. , 
With this exception, almost all the prominent Continental nations appear to 1 f 
been in advance of our own with reference to the status of pharmacists and the regu¬ 
lation of their duties and responsibilities. , „_, 
The popular notion, dear to the heart of every Bnton, that we are the foremost 
nation in the world, and ever lead the van in progress and reform, receives a rude 
shock when we find that what after nearly thirty years of unwearied labour has just 
been accomplished by the Pharmacy Act of 1869, was to a very large extent carried 
out in Bruges nearly six hundred years ago! . , _ ., ,, 
In 1297, Bruges boasts of a body corporate of pharmacists of considerable distinc¬ 
tion. Holding their meetings in a spacious hall, and consecrating their labours v 
