December u, 1372.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
4G1 
PHARMACEUTICAL PROGRESS.* 
BY CHARLES SYMES, PH.D. 
The subject which I have hurriedly chosen 
is a wide one; my notes contain thoughts as 
hurriedly strung together, hut I trust they will lose 
nothing of their genuineness on that account. It is 
one which looked at by different individuals, or even 
the same individual, under different conditions, will 
necessarily appear very different, therefore I can 
only be responsible for depicting it as it appears 
from my own point of view. 
Were I so disposed, I have not the time to search 
out and bring before you all the minor circumstances 
connected with the dawn of pharmaceutical his¬ 
tory, neither will I bore you with statistics and 
figures to prove simple facts of which you have a 
general idea already in your minds. We must ne¬ 
cessarily have some starting-point, and probably 
cannot do better than take the foundation of the 
Pharmaceutical Society for our commencement; 
doing so, we will, if you please, divide our subject 
under these heads—the immediate past, the pre¬ 
sent, and the immediate future. 
The Immediate Past. —There are some still living 
amongst us who first moved in constituting the 
Pharmaceutical Society, others w'ho joined it in its 
early days, and consequently became also its 
founders. Those who are desirous of going into the 
details of its history from the commencement will find 
them fully set forth in the pages of the Pharmaceuti¬ 
cal J ouRXAL. Suffice it to say that a number of earnest 
men, desirous of seeing a better state of things 
than there existed, with a large-heartedness well 
worthy our emulation, gave their time and their 
money to bring about the desired results. Some of 
these men have passed away in comparative ob¬ 
scurity, but their work remains, and let us, who are 
reaping the reward of their labours, honour their 
memory, rather than as has been occasionally done, 
make disparaging remarks as to their professional 
skill and knowledge ; they did the work that came 
to their lot to do, let us do the same. 
At first a considerable amount of energy was 
thrown into the matter; brilliant and rapid progress 
was anticipated. But it soon became evident that 
however correct and good the object in view, the im¬ 
mediate results were over-estimated; that there was 
no room for the continual display of this great energy. 
The same lesson has constantly to be learnt over 
and. over again by individuals, communities and 
nations. Nature cannot be so easily pushed out of 
her course ; matters of this kind will rarely proceed 
and become matured as rapidly as our wishes ; hi 
this particular the old maxim “ festina lente ” pre¬ 
vailed, and it was over a quarter of a century before 
the hopes of the founders were realized. 
It is true that in 1852 the Society got an Act of 
Parliament to confirm their charter of incorporation; 
but tliis only served to shut out from it many good 
and worthy men, who for reasons probably not known 
to themselves had not previously joined; the out¬ 
siders, as they were called, were in considerable 
majority, and jealousy gradually sprung up between 
these two bodies—a rival society being started. 
This society did some good of its kind; it gave tliis 
large outside majority a desire for organization, 
* Abstract of a discourse delivered at a meeting of the 
Liverpool Chemists’ Association. 
Third Series, No. 129 . 
which the Pharmaceutical Society, from the very 
nature of its constitution at that time, could not do'; 
and it finally treated with that Society for conditions 
on which, not only itself, but the whole trade should 
become one in certain common interests. We all 
remember how, amidst the strife of tongues, much 
written controversy, and after several failures, the 
Pharmacy Act was ultimately passed in 1808, and 
we were ushered into a new state of existence. 
The Present. —Taking all things into consideration, 
the. new Act is working as well as might be expected. 
It is true, we still have cases of poisoning as of 
yore; and both magistrates and coroners occasion¬ 
ally censure chemists quite undeservedly, by threat¬ 
ening to fine them for not registering the sale of 
such articles as laudanum, etc. This latter error 
will become less frequent in course of time, when 
the Act is better understood by these dignitaries. 
But the poisoning cases, when they will cease, who 
can tell ? Education is a subject which at present 
is engaging much attention, not only amongst the 
pharmaceutical body, but throughout the civilized 
world; and it sometimes appears as though w had 
none of the great men of talent living amongst us 
now as in years gone by. But reflection tells us 
that things have changed; that in the past igno¬ 
rance — dark, black ignorance prevailed; and 
wherever talent existed tliis darkness formed a back¬ 
ground from which it shone resplendent. In the 
present, education more generally prevails; the 
background is not nearly so dark; there is more 
halftone, and, consequently, our educational picture 
is not so bold or striking. In nations and also in 
communities, we can usually judge of general pro¬ 
gress by educational progress; and no one looking 
at pharmacy as it is in the present day, and as it 
was thirty years ago, can doubt for a moment that 
we have considerably advanced. The large number 
of excellent books which have been published during 
that period, in chemistry, pharmacy, botany, materia 
medica, etc. ; the improvement in the purity of our 
drugs and chemicals; the better facilities for detect¬ 
ing adulteration are evidence of this. We have the 
pharmaceutical establishment in Bloomsbury 
Square, with its extensive museums, library and 
laboratories ; also other schools of pharmacy, both 
metropolitan and provincial; we have the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Conference holding its meetings in different 
parts of the country, for the purpose of interchange 
of thoughts, etc.; we have our provincial associa¬ 
tions; and last, though not least, two excellent 
journals devoted to our interests. 
In the past a five or seven years’ apprenticeship 
was often spent in mere drudgery instead of intel¬ 
lectual culture, but there is a growing tendency to 
substitute mechanical for bodily labour. I grant 
you that some of those who were educated under 
difficulties turned out first-class men, but that goes 
for very little; might they not, with better facilities, 
have been still better men ? 
Then there are signs of decided improvement in 
shortening our hours of active labour in the business. 
The Immediate Future. —I do not propose to enter 
the domain of prophecy, not even to suggest the 
possible position of pharmacy in the year 1900, but 
simply to make a few remarks as to certain progres¬ 
sive conditions and improvements which we might hope 
for and reasonably expect during the next few years. 
Well, I have said there is a tendencj 7- to shorten 
the hours of active labour. Perhaps it might be 
