December 7, 1872.] THE RHARMA0EUT1CAL JOURNAL 
AND TRANSACTIONS. 
^Greenish, Hampson, Hills, Owen, Radley, Sandford, 
Savage, Schacht, Shaw, Stoddart and Urwick. 
Against —Mr. Williams. 
The President did not vote. 
Provincial Education. 
Mr. Schacht, in consequence of there having been 
mo meeting of the Provincial Education Committee 
•during the past month, proposed that two applications 
which had been received from Aberdeen and Leicester 
should be considered by the Council at once. 
Mr. Sandford seconded the motion. 
Mr. Williams moved an amendment, which was se- 
copded.and carried, for referring the matter to the Com¬ 
mittee in the ordinary way, on the ground that it would 
occupy too much time to discuss these applications at 
the Council Board. 
Appointment of Analysts Under the Adulteration 
of Food, Drugs, etc., Act. 
Deputation to Mr. Stansfeld. 
The President said no doubt the Council had seen a 
■report in the newspapers of a deputation of medical 
gentlemen to Mr. Stansfeld, one of their resolutions 
being that chemists and druggists were not competent for 
■the appointment of analyst under the new Adulteration 
Act. Mr. Stansfeld’s reply was that an ordinary che¬ 
mist and druggist was not competent, and that he did not 
imagine any such persons would be appointed, He (the 
President) thought this applied equally to ordinary 
medical men, that there were among chemists and drug¬ 
gists many quite qualified and eligible for the appoint¬ 
ment, and that a deputation on the part of the chemists 
and druggists should wait on Mr. Stansfeld to urge their 
view of the matter. The Vice-President, he might say, 
was also of this opinion. 
Mr. Savage thereupon moved that a deputation be 
appointed to wait upon Mr. Stansfeld on the subject at 
.the earliest possible opportunity. 
Mr. Hampson seconded the motion, which was carried 
unanimously, and the President, Treasurer, Messrs. 
Sandford, Greenish and Betty, the Secretary, and the 
Society’s Solicitor, with power to add to their number, 
-rrvic appointed the deputation, 
Amended Regulations of the Board of Examiners. 
The amended regulations, as proposed by the Board 
of Examiners, were submitted. 
Mr. Schacht said that as a member of the General 
Purposes Committee which had met a deputation 
from the Board of Examiners to consider this matter, 
he would propose the adoption substantially of the re¬ 
commendations. All who were present at the large 
committee meeting would have heard the subject so fully 
explained by Mr. Carteighe, who perhaps had taken as 
much interest in the matter as any of the Board of Exa¬ 
miners, that it was not necessary to go into it again. 
Broadly speaking, however, there were two or three es¬ 
sential points for consideration. In the first place, there 
was a certain limit of age in the candidate for the Minor 
-examinations, and the necessity of producing a certifi¬ 
cate of having been engaged a certain time in the prac¬ 
tice of pharmacy. That was one point of the utmost 
consequence. Then, again, there was a general shifting 
uf the subjects in which the candidates were to be exa¬ 
mined—some being taken altogether out of the Major, 
and thrown altogether into the Minor—and there was an 
apparent excess of matter urged upon the candidates for 
the Minor examination. The first topic seemed to be the 
•oae of by far the most importance, and to it he felt in¬ 
clined most warmly to accede. The proposed change 
seemecF a most wise one, and not only wise in itself, 
but in accordance with the spirit of the Act 
of Parliament which gave them power to exa¬ 
mine at all. In fact, the opposite course seemed to 
be involved in absurdity; that that Society, in whose 
hands was vested the power of determining on behalf of 
the public who was or was not competent to carry 
on the business of a chemist and druggist, should be able 
to empower any young- man, at the age of sixteen even, 
to do so was a simple absurdity; and it could not be 
other than in accordance with the intention of the Act 
of Parliament, that they should require such persons, 
who were to be stamped, as it were, with their certificate’ 
to be of the mature age of twenty-one. The necessity, 
that candidates should pass a certain portion of the pre¬ 
vious years in practical pharmacy, was what all recog¬ 
nized as positively necessary when themselves engaging- 
assistants, and it was only fair to insist upon the same 
thing- before allowing any one to practise his profession 
for the benefit of the public or otherwise. The altera¬ 
tions proposed in the Minor examination were not so 
great as might appear, and one or two points certainly 
seemed quite sensible, and only such as ought to be re¬ 
quired by those in whose hands the public safety was 
placed. The small extra modicum of science could not 
bo objected to. by any one, and he thought the whole 
changes were in that direction which had been of late 
much clamoured for, r.amely, to prove whether a candi¬ 
date had a practical knowledge of his business. He be¬ 
lieved there was some little difference of opinion whether 
they had power to make these changes, and with that 
view he had framed his resolution, so as, if possible, to 
limit the expression of the opinion of the Council to the 
principles involved. And as there was also an idea in 
some minds that by carrying the regulations as they stood, 
they should be pledging themselves to the existing ar¬ 
rangement of fees, which was quite a different question; 
he also intended to exclude that subject. If those two 
elements of difficulty were eliminated from the question 
he could not but hope that the proposition would be 
unanimously carried in this form. 
“ That the proposed amended regulations of the Board 
of Examiners with the omission of all words re¬ 
lating- to fees, be adopted, and that the question 
as to the Council possessing- the legal power to 
carry the proposed alterations into effect be referred 
to the Parliamentary Committee.” 
Mr. Stoddart seconded the resolution with much 
pleasure. He knew two or three instances at the present 
moment of' young men who had passed the Minor ex¬ 
amination, which qualified them to keep open shops as 
chemists and druggists, who did not really know how to 
carry on the business at all. The fact was they had 
been apprenticed to masters who had rather taught 
them to come and pass the examination than how to 
carry on their business, so that they really were not 
qualified. That at any rate showed the necessity for 
requiring three years’ experience before passing the 
examination, and his own opinion was that a young man 
ought to know his business first, and then come and pass 
the examinations afterwards. He had carefully looked 
over the amended regulations and could see nothing at 
all to make them too difficult unless it were the few 
words under the head of botany relating to the “ arts 
and domestic economy.” There was nothing there 
difficult in itself, but it might give the examiner the 
power of making the examination very difficult indeed. 
Mr. Frazer moved an amendment, 
u That the proposed alterations in the character of the 
present examination be not adopted.” 
He said he did not do so without serious consideration, 
and he was very sorry Mr. Mackay was not present, 
because he knew he took the same view. He would not 
go into the minutue of the matter, but he did not think 
any circumstances existed at present warranting a change. 
He was not aware that the present examinations had 
proved inefficient, though of course, isolated cases might 
occur, just in the same way as medical men occasionally 
proved inefficient to perform the responsible duties cast 
upon them, even although they might have passed a 
stringent examination. Generally speaking, however, 
