763 
ANNUAL MEETING. 
macy. Other alterations in the regulations have been made, which are compara¬ 
tively of minor importance. 
It is a matter of congratulation that the responsibility devolving on the- 
Board of Examiners has been relieved by the appointment of a Government 
Visitor ; and your Council feels that the weight of this gentleman’s approval 
in the character and manner of the conduct of the examinations, is an advantage 
both in the interest of the public and of the candidates. 
At the last annual meeting it was resolved that the proceedings of the Council 
should be published in the Journal, the mode and amount of publication being 
left to the Council to arrange. Your Council trusts that it has satisfac¬ 
torily responded to this instruction by the amount of publicity given in the 
Journal to its transactions. 
The Journal account of 1869 does not show a balance to the credit of the 
funds of the Society as has been the case for the last two or three years ; but it 
must be remembered that the profit or loss on the Journal depends mainly 
on the number of members, associates, and apprentices, to whom it is supplied 
without charge ; and during the past year their increase has been so consider¬ 
able, as to swallow up the profit shown on former occasions. 
Your Council, having regard to the increased number of members of the Society, 
has carefully considered the position of the Journal and the influence it was de¬ 
signed to exercise over the body of pharmaceutists and chemists and druggists, 
and has decided on making it a weekly publication, commencing in July next, 
the importance of the discussions appearing in its pages, and the desire for more 
speedy pharmaceutical information, together with its. increased popularity, 
clearly showing that such a change is desirable. 
In the matter of legislation, your Council has not been unmindful. Certain 
imperfections, introduced as amendments into the Act of 1868, needed rectifica¬ 
tion, and have been corrected by the Act of 1869. 
The amendment first proposed had for its object the removal of a disability of 
medical men, and in effect restored the Act to the condition of the Bill origi¬ 
nally drafted by the Society. But Dr. Brewer, discerning an obscurity as to the 
construction of section 17 in regard to the labelling of compound medicines con¬ 
taining poisons, proposed an alteration to exempt medicines dispensed under the 
prescriptions of qualified medical men from the requirements of this section. Your 
Council, seeing the injustice which might arise from such a course to dispensers, 
into whose hands prescriptions might be put written by persons unknown to 
them, or who might be required to dispense medicines containing poisons even 
without a written prescription, at once took energetic measures, and spared no 
pains to obtain the exemption of such medicines also. 
Assistants excluded through various causes from the provisions of the Act of 
1868 were relieved from their disability by the amendment of 1869 ; 328 have 
secured for themselves the privilege of the extended time, and it is gratifying to 
note that of this number many have already passed creditable examinations, and 
been placed upon the register of chemists and druggists. 
Your Council, impressed with the duty imposed upon it by the Pharmacy Act 
to regulate the schedule of poisons, and promulgate regulations for the keeping of 
them, issued an addendum of preparations of certain poisons named in the former 
schedule ; and has further suggested for the adoption of the Society regulations, 
either one or all of which should either separately or conjointly be used in the 
keeping and storing of poisons. These regulations seem to meet every variety 
of circumstance, and exigence, and it will be for this meeting to decide on the 
adoption or rejection of them. 
Remembering the difficulties in the way of making a positively correct register 
of chemists and druggists at the outset, your Council cannot but consider that 
the Registrar was successful to a remarkable degree, and that it is a matter of 
