332 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[October 26, 1872. 
Booth, (the President of the Association) delivered the 
following address :— 
I congratulate the association on the position which 
they now occupy. Some years ago, before the establish¬ 
ment of the Pharmaceutical Society, the chemists and 
druggists of England were a disorganized body. They 
had no centre of life, no trade organization or association, 
and were consequently largely and sometimes perilously 
exposed to attacks from without, calculated to endanger 
the trade, and inconveniently to confine its operations. 
At the time to which we refer, the labour and anxiety, 
for instance, of getting up an opposition to an ob¬ 
noxious measure w r as very great, and even at such times 
it required no small degree of eloquence and demon¬ 
stration to arouse the generally dormant spirit of the 
trade, who appeared to think the world vras bounded by 
their own horizon and themselves the centre thereof. 
On such occasions, the interests of the trade were 
greatly jeopardized, and but for the philanthropic 
and praiseworthy labours of such men as the late Jacob 
Bell especially, with Messrs. Allen, Farmar, Ince, Gif¬ 
ford, Herring and Barron, and the indefatigable secre¬ 
tary of the Pharmaceutical Society, the late Mr. George 
W. Smith, the business of pharmaceutical chemists and 
druggists would have been so crippled, “cabin’d and 
confined,” that it would have ultimately died out, and 
the verdict would have been, “ Died under the visita¬ 
tion and oppression of the Apothecaries’ Acts.” 
It was in the year 1841 that a large and influential pub¬ 
lic meeting of the chemists and druggists of London was 
called at the Crown and Anchor, to take into considera¬ 
tion “ a Bill to amend the laws relating to the Medi- 
<cal Profession in Great Britain and Ireland,” introduced 
by Mr. Hawes, M.P. The object of this Bill was to 
curtail the freedom hitherto enjoyed by chemists and 
druggists prescribing and recommending medicines; 
in fact, to deprive them of the right to do so. The 
audacity of this proposal had alarmed the leading 
members of the trade in London, and forming them¬ 
selves into a committee to resist the passing of the Bill, 
they entered into correspondence with members of the 
drug trade in the country. We believe the anxiety thus 
expressed by the London members was heartily responded 
to by the country, and Mr. Hawes soon intimated his 
intention to withdraw the obnoxious clauses affecting 
the drug trade, upon which his friend Mr. Wakley en¬ 
treated Mr. Hawes to withdraw the remaining portions 
of the Bill. He did so, asking leave to bring in a new 
one, thus showing that the prime object of this Bill was 
so to break down and check the rising importance of 
the drug trade, that the interests, etc., of apothecaries 
might be enhanced. I am happy to say Rochdale took 
its part in this successful opposition, and continued to 
do so, for in the following month, an amended Bill was 
introduced by Mr. Hawes, “more insidious and inju¬ 
rious to the trade than the intelligible, clear provisions 
•of the former Bill.” 
This Bill, had it become law, would have had the 
effect of suppressing the trade altogether, and esta¬ 
blishing a monopoly of the sale and dispensing of drugs in 
the Society of Apothecaries; would have left the public, 
and the poor of England especially, to the tender mer- 
cies of those who were ready to say with Dr. Letsom, 
“ When patients sick apply to mo, 
I purges, bleeds, and sweats ’em; 
If after that they choose to dee, 
What’s that to me, J. Letsom ?” 
On this occasion a petition was presented from Roch¬ 
dale by Mr. Fenton and Mr. Brotherton. The House 
was “counted out” before the determination of the 
debate. 
The committee who had thus so actively and success¬ 
fully opposed the Bill, in reporting to their constituents, 
expressed their opinion that it had become necessary to 
vwatch with attention any future attempts at legislation 
with respect to the trade, as they had ascertained clearly 
that it was the intention of the College of Physicians, 
the College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries’ Company, in 
their scheme for medical reform, to bring chemists and 
druggists by some legislative enactment under their 
joint control, but especially that of the Society of Apothe¬ 
caries \ 
This meeting held on the loth April, 1841, unani¬ 
mously adopted the Report, and resolved, “ That with a 
view to the protection of permanent interests of the 
trade, an association under the title of the Pharmaceu¬ 
tical Society of Great Britain should then be formed, 
and that a committee should be appointed to frame laws 
and regulations for its future government.” Thereupon 
deputations visited various large towns, and everywhere 
met with hearty reception. Manchester and vicinity, re¬ 
presented at a special meeting in the Mechanics’ Institute, 
was visited by the late Mr. Bell on the loth November, 
1841, and after an interesting discussion resolved on the 
formation of a branch association which was vigorously 
carried on for several years. Courses of lectures on 
Botany and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, etc., were de¬ 
livered and fairly attended. But in five years, I am 
sorry to say, the library and reading-room were closed 
for want of sufficient interest. 
As a proof of the necessity of some organization to 
watch over the interests of the trade, and that the esta¬ 
blishment of the Pharmaceutical Society was most oppor¬ 
tune and judicious, it may be stated that many attempts 
were made in Parliament to carry clauses in various 
Bills which would have been prejudicalto their interests. 
The Pharmaceutical Society was incorporated in 1843 ; 
and awake to the duty of guarding our trade interests, as 
well as providing means for the better education of 
chemists and druggists, set themselves with spirit to 
arouse their brethren to a sense of their responsi¬ 
bility to the public, and to the prime necessity of 
that better education for the right performance of the 
duty chemists and druggists professed to discharge, so 
they presented a bill for the regulation of the qualifica¬ 
tion of chemists and druggists in England and Wales—■ 
pronouncing it to be essential to the security of the public 
that those engaged in the preparation and sale of drugs 
and medicines, should possess competent knowledge of 
their characters and properties, and such other informa¬ 
tion required to enable the dispenser to prepare correctly 
the prescriptions of medical men. It is very remarkable, 
and is an exhibit of the general indifference to the sub¬ 
ject in England, that almost every other European nation 
regulated by law the education of those engaged in 
pharmaceutical pursuits. 
I will draw a veil over the state of pharmacy fifty 
years ago in this country. I will not particularize 
lamentable cases of presumption and ignorance, nor will 
we mention the fraud and imposition practised on the 
public by the sale of articles, mere adulterations and 
substitutions, which were palmed off as “ the thing.” 
The attention drawn to the subject of pharmaceutical 
education has been beneficial; on all hands we perceive 
improvement. There is springing, up we might say, 
a new race of pharmacists who bid fair to be an honour 
to their country, and who will shortly far out distance 
their predecessors, as their opportunities and advantages 
are so much greater than theirs were. It is greatly to 
be desired that this progress (general as it is) were more 
rapid. The daily signs of it, however, give ground for 
cheering and bright hope. 
The sale and preparation of medicines was in early 
times in the hands of comparatively few. They must have 
been observant and careful men, for they could only have 
arrived by such means at the knowledge of the particular 
effects of medicines. How many accidental deaths there 
must have been! How many cases in which experiments 
in medicines must have had terrific results ! Reference 
to their ■works prove how they believed medicines to 
have been under the direction of the planets and zodiacal 
