-August 24, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
147 
%\t JjjanMteutital Journal. 
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1872. 
Communications for this Journal, and hooks for review,etc., 
should he addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
r transmission of the Journal should he sent to_ Elias Lrem- 
itiDGE, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square , >N.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London , W. Envelopes indorsed “Fharm. Journ. 
THE QUALIFICATIONS AND REMUNERATION OF 
ASSISTANTS. 
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to 
-whether at the present time pharmacy takes rank as 
a trade or as a profession, it will he generally con¬ 
ceded that much vigilant and persevering work 
will have to be done before it attains the position it 
aspires to hold in the future; and since the maximum 
strength of a eliain only equals the strength of its 
weakest link, the detection and removal of weak 
•points when a long-continued strain is expected is 
not only wise but necessary. 
Such a weak point has been more than once indi¬ 
cated in our correspondence columns, as existing in 
the present state of the law respecting pharmaceuti¬ 
cal assistants. Although the Pharmacy Act of 1808 
•doubtless permitted many unqualified persons to 
-claim that their names should be placed upon the 
Register of Chemists and Druggists, it also provided 
that no further additions should be made except of 
persons who have so far proved their qualifications 
for carrying on business as to have passed the Minoi 
•examination. But no similar safeguard exists with 
regard to assistants, and it is greatly to be regretted 
that even the risk of a business suffering from the 
effects of mistakes and incompetency is not sufficient 
to deter some employers from engaging “ assistants 
who have little qualification beyond the name. 
One consequence of this is made evident by the 
frequent inquiries received as to the legality of re¬ 
gistered chemists and druggists keeping one or more 
.branch establishments, and leaving them to the care 
of such unqualified men. Another is that the assis¬ 
tant who has been to the trouble and expense of 
passing liis Minor is met in competition by the un¬ 
educated man; and though there may be little doubt 
as to which would be chosen by the respectable 
pharmacist, there is equally little doubt that this 
competition has an injurious effect upon the rate of 
remuneration an examined man can command. 
Now that the necessity for passing the Preliminary 
examination before commencing apprenticeship is 
generally admitted, it would be well if the original 
idea that the Minor should be a test of fitness for 
performing an assistant’s duties were to become a 
little more popular. Dr. Attfield justly remarks in 
his paper (p. 153) that the Major examination was 
originally designed as the minimum gauge or measure 
of a man’s fitness to conduct business on his own 
account, the Minor examination being devised as that 
best fitted to test the capacity and capabilities of an 
assistant in pharmacy. It does not follow, howevei, 
that the examination is lowered, and that education 
formerly only good enough for assistants is to-day con¬ 
sidered good enough for masters, because the Minor 
is now the compulsory test before entering business, 
for under the Act of 1852 the Minor examination 
was purely optional, as the Major is now, and tlieie 
was nothing to hinder an unexamined man calling 
himself a “ chemist and druggist’s assistant, 
or 
a 
chemist and druggist” either. 
In a recent number “ A Master” instanced a case 
of an assistant whom he found unable to wrap up an 
eight-ounce mixture cleanly and neatly, who ap¬ 
peared to have seen little or no dispensing, and whom 
“ A Master” therefore discharged. A correspondent, 
signing himself “A Man,” has favoured us with a 
letter, which from want of room we are unable to 
print, in which he suggests that it would be better to 
sacrifice a quire of white demy than to dismiss an 
otherwise qualified assistant. This advice, no doubt 
kindly meant, is scarcely sound, for an assistant 
should certainly have long before passed so prelimi¬ 
nary a stage. With many of the best friends of phar¬ 
macy, w r e rather look forward to the time when 
every master shall have passed the Major examina¬ 
tion and every assistant the Minor. To this point 
some of our American brethren have already at¬ 
tained, for in the Act recently passed,-regulating 
the practice of pharmacy in Philadelphia, it is en¬ 
acted that no person is to dispense prescriptions, 
except as an aid under the immediate supervision 
of the proprietor or a qualified assistant, who has not 
been apprenticed two years and attended one full 
course of lectures on chemistry, materia medica and 
pharmacy; and no proprietor is to leave Ins store m 
charge of any but a qualified assistant. Were 
English pharmacy but rid of all uneducated compe¬ 
tition, one evil at least would be in a fan way of re-, 
moval; for the master pharmacist would be better 
able to comply with the demand, which assistants 
mioht then with more assurance make, that then 
labours should be more adequately remunerated than 
they are at present. 
The following gentlemen have been elected office¬ 
bearers of the British Pharmaceutical Conference 
for the ensuing year:— President, Mid H- • IUDV ' 
Vice-Presidents, Messrs. H. Dease, R. Bentley, . 
Hasbuey, W. W. Stoddart, T. H. Hills. J. Wil¬ 
liams, R. Reynolds and F. M. R.mmington ; Iren- 
surer Mr. G. F. Schacht; General Secretaius 
Professor Attfield and Mr. F. Baden Benges 
‘ # Ante, Vol. II. P- 953. 
