October 19,1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
319 
Corapt&titct. 
*** No notice can be taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti¬ 
cated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
Pharmaceutical Examinations. 
Sir,—In common with many of my pharmaceutical bre¬ 
thren I have been deeply interested in the discussion started by 
Professor Attfield, and just concluded by Professor Redwood. 
I feel it is a subject not only of deep interest to us all, but, 
moreover, affecting our very characters individually. My 
opinion is, that the question, whether desultory laboratory 
instruction, or precise cram are to be the order of the day, is 
of very little consequence indeed, The problem we have yet 
to solve is, how to make the Minor examination a real test 
of a man’s capacity to carry on to the satisfaction of the 
public and medical profession the business of a chemist and 
druggist. 
Smatterings of chemistry and botany are about as useful 
to a chemist as they are to the medical man; and the Minor 
examination will never be a real test until the candidates are 
examined more on their five years’ apprenticeship or prac¬ 
tical instruction, than on that knowledge which can avowedly 
be picked up in Bloomsbury in five months, or at a cram 
shop in one. 
How many men spread a plaster at their examination 
table ? 
How many candidates run out of a chemical and prepare 
it, if practicable, on the spot ? 
How many blisters are prepared by the candidates in the 
course of a year ? 
How many candidates are asked to test for albumen, 
sugar, or bile, etc., in mine in the course of a year ? 
How many kinds of pills are prepared by each candidate, 
and how many coated or silvered ? 
To what extent are they tested as to their capacity for in¬ 
corporating essential oils in pills ? 
How many students are tested in making pills with crea- 
sote or carbolic acid ? 
How many men are asked to clean a dirty bottle expedi¬ 
tiously ? 
How many prescriptions are dispensed by a candidate to 
test his accuracy, and is not this the last accomplishment a 
chemist learns, and a vital one, too ? 
I ask these questions, a few only; it is wondrously easy to 
add to them; and are they not the questions a man has 
practically to solve daily behind his dispensing counter ? 
I say, if you make your examination a crammer, cram is 
the best answer for it, and the public will be more perplexed 
with licensed chemists than they ever were with licensed 
doctors; and it will be almost a science to sift the wheat from 
the chaff. 
Two really good practical assessors would be well worth 
£800 a year* to the Society, and that I consider is the direc¬ 
tion our surplus funds should take, and not be frittered away 
in dilute chemistry and botany through the provinces. 
Five years is supposed to be devoted to practical instruc¬ 
tion. Ten months is the top run for the theoretical. And 
yet I understand the practical in value, compared to the theo¬ 
retical, is about 1 as to 7. Five years will scarcely teach the 
former; the latter can be picked up at Bloomsbury in five 
months, or, still better, at a cram shop in one. Of course, 
•cram succeeds with men of average memories, for the prac¬ 
tical knowledge and handicraft count a mere nothing against 
the ornaments. 
Let. me be thoroughly understood. I value science and 
scientific thought very much; but if I wanted a carpenter 
to work for me, what would it avail me that he knew the 
grain of every wood, the composition of cellulose, the laws 
of cell multiplication and division, the difference in structure 
between exogens and endogens, if he sawed in a crooked 
manner or planed awry ? And so with the Bloomsbury 
brand. Unless it marks the neat plaster-spreader, the apt 
chemical-maker, the careful tester, the deft pill-maker, and 
the tidy silverer, in addition to the ornaments of a pharma¬ 
ceutical curriculum, we shall fall into greater error than 
* I say £800 a year, because three days’ practical examina¬ 
tion would be little enough for a batch of candidates, and 
.for £400 a year each we could always secure the best men. 
did our medical friends before they insisted on at least 
three sessions attendance at a medical school as a sine qua 
non for candidates for medical diplomas ; for we do not work 
in the cloud land of mystery—patients must die some day; 
but fiat pills are terrible accusers; we cannot hide our mis¬ 
fits underground. George Mee. 
79, Grosvenor Road, Highbury Neio Park, 
September 30th, 1872. 
Sir,—I would very willingly have left the revision of the 
examinations in the hands of the Board of Examiners 
without any public comment on my part, had it not been for 
the report of the Tyneside Chemists’ Assistants’ Association’s 
meeting, giving a notice of my remarks upon this question, 
which is calculated to give a false impression of my views. 
At the meeting alluded to, I described the kind of Preliminary 
education I thought desirable, and hoped chat the revision of 
the regulations of the Board would do something towards 
ensuring it. 1 thought that the Preliminary examination 
should not only show that the youth had had an ordinary 
liberal schooling, including a sufficient knowledge of Latin, 
but should show that he had an aptitude in the kind of sub¬ 
jects which would afterwards become his special studies, and 
for that reason I would include elementary botany and 
chemistry, I thought that the Preliminary examination 
should not only show that the mind was stored with certain 
facts, but had acquired certain powers; that the observing 
and thinking faculties had been so far developed as to put the 
youth in a position to take advantage of the circumstances 
with which he would be surrounded during his apprentice¬ 
ship ; and that while I would not object to French, German, 
and Greek questions being included in the examination 
paper, the student being at liberty to choose for himself which 
he wmuld answer, I was much more desirous to see physical 
subjects added, which, however elementary in character they 
might be, would give some guarantee that the apprentice was 
in a condition to observe and understand something of the 
materials and processes coming under his daily notice. I 
would like to see the examination paper include questions 
upon heat, light, electricity, and the general properties of 
common objects; the candidate again being left at liberty to 
choose which of these subjects he would select for treatment. 
An d the subjects given for English composition might also be 
changed with advantage; instead of being as now a request 
for twenty lines upon “ strikes,” or “Westminster Abbey”— 
subjects as far as possible removed from his pharmaceutical 
requirements,—they might with advantage require a short 
essay on “glass,” “iron,” “paper,” “water,” “grass,” “a 
plant,” “chalk,” “coal,” “heat,” “light,” “magnetism,” etc., 
which would not only afford opportunity of showing his 
power of expressing himself correctly, but also giving some 
clue to his general information and intellectual condition. 
I thought it most important that the regulations for the 
Preliminary examination should be such as to keep from 
entering the business all such as were not sufficiently in¬ 
formed and sufficiently educated to prosecute pharmacy with 
advantage. I thought comparatively few of those who might 
enter the business under such circumstances would be found 
deficient after their term of pupilage, but at the same time the 
Minor and Major examinations might be made broader and 
more practical, being spread over a longer time, and including 
practical operations in testing, etc. And I will now add a 
point which I did not then advocate, but which I think of 
some importance, viz., that the two latter examinations might 
be divided into two portions, a written examination to be con¬ 
ducted as the Preliminary now is, and which might advan¬ 
tageously include, as Professor Redwood suggests, an inquiry 
into the particulars of the candidate’s education. The time 
of the Board, and both the time and money of the student, 
would be saved by calling to the metropolis for the practical 
part of the examination only those candidates who might give 
satisfactory evidence in their written replies of having at 
least a fair prospect of passing the remainder. 
Barnard S. Proctor. 
11, Grey Street, Newcastle, Oct. 14 th, 1872. 
Patent Medicine Licences. 
Sir,—I wish to point out a circumstance which in the present 
state of the law, is “ a great injustice ” to a certain portion ot 
the chemists and druggists, viz., “ The Patent Medicine Li¬ 
cence.” I have two shops, the one in Thames Street, Kingston- 
on-Thames, Surrey, the other in High Street, Hampton \V ick, 
