588 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[January 25, 1873, 
violence to common sense, the Lancet, adhering to 
old views and manners, ignores the changes of time. 
The chemist of to-day, qualified by years of study, 
not less severe than that of the medical practitioner, 
and tested by as severe an examination,—the exact 
and careful dispenser, who understands the nature 
of the potent agencies he handles, now kept by law 
out of less skilful hands,—will not be deprived of the 
growing estimation of his services by unreasoning 
depreciation or contempt. We confidently believe 
also that the time is fast approaching, although the 
Lancet sees it not yet, when medical men them¬ 
selves will abandon their slovenly methods of pre¬ 
paring medicines, and gladly avail themselves of 
the services of the best chemists, regardless of the 
furs and jewellery which their skilled labour may 
provide for their wives and daughters. 
The public know perfectly well that chemists, en¬ 
trusted with duties in which life and death are in¬ 
volved, are not to be remunerated by the mere 
profits of retail trade, any more than medical prac¬ 
titioners ; and the writer in the Globe should, if he 
desired really to make his inquiry of any use, have 
gone further, and ascertained what would have been 
charged for his test pills and mixture by medical 
men who dispense and furnish their own medicine. 
We may safely affirm that the price would have 
gone still higher, and that the minimum instead of 
eightpence would have become, at least, four shil¬ 
lings and six pence in a doctor’s bill. 
The best hope for medical men and chemists lies 
in maintaining mutual good understanding. And it 
is to cultivate this more generally that the efforts of 
both classes should be directed. They can assist 
each other materially in many ways. It is, there- 
ore, to be regretted that so important a journal as 
the Lancet, instead of endeavouring to promote good 
feeling between prescribers and dispensers, should 
use language which can only tend to engender ani¬ 
mosity, and neutralize the good each could do the 
other. The mission of the Lancet is not to foster 
arrogance in medical men, nor to provoke chemists 
to imitate its own vulgarity, and say, “the preten¬ 
sions of the class are becoming a nuisance that it 
is high time to put down.” 
PHARMACEUTICAL WOMEN. 
When some months ago a correspondent inquired 
whether women were admissible to the examina¬ 
tions of the Pharmaceutical Society we felt con¬ 
strained to state what seemed the natural conse¬ 
quence of legislative recognition of Mr. Stuart 
Mill’s definition of the word “ person.” Since then 
the lecture classes of the Society’s school have com¬ 
prised several female students, and by the report of 
the examinations published in this Journal it ap¬ 
pears that two of them have already passed through 
the first grade of probation for being registered as 
duly qualified chemists and druggists, one of them 
heading a list of 166 successful candidates. We are 
informed that both of these ladies are regularly en¬ 
gaged in dispensing medicine as the avocation by 
which they gain their living, and that they contem¬ 
plate following out this career thoroughly may be 
anticipated from the fact that, in addition to seeking 
the bare legal qualification, they have indicated their 
desire to be associated with the Pharmaceutical 
Society by becoming registered as “Apprentices or 
Students of the Society. This step will have the effect 
of placing these ladies beyond the influence of the 
objection raised at the last Council meeting to the 
admission of women students to compete for the 
prizes and certificates given at the end of each 
Session. 
Last week the British Medical Journal, in com¬ 
menting on the decision not to allow the industry 
of female students the chance of reward offered ta¬ 
male students by the session prizes, said, somewhat 
irreverently, that it seemed “ as though the old 
women of the Council had determined to keep the 
young ones back” by doing “ their utmost to handi¬ 
cap and discourage them.” 
We may expect, therefore, that the subject will 1 
again come forward at the Council table, and those 
who voted against Mr. Hampson’s motion will either 
withdraw their opposition or take such steps as will 
show that they are not open to the reproach of our 
contemporary. 
Meanwhile, it may not be superfluous in regard to- 
this subject, as well as others, to embrace any oppor¬ 
tunity of the advantage so earnestly desired by 
Robert Burns of seeing ourselves as others see us,, 
and for this reason we quote here the following, 
article from the Pall Mall Gazette :— 
“ There has been something like precipitancy if not 
error in the good words which have been spoken of the- 
Pharmaceutical Society of London for the liberality 
which appeared to mark the recent resolution of the 
Council not to exclude women from the lectures on 
chemistry and botany delivered at their house in Blooms¬ 
bury Square. It appears from their late proceedings 
that what they did was only from a sense of legal ne¬ 
cessity, and that they are preparing by side-winds to 
prevent the concession which they could not easily with¬ 
hold from affording any real facilities for women to 
enter upon a career which has been fully open to them 
until the last few years, and of which some hundreds 
have availed themselves. The means by which an appa- - 
rent liberality is made really exclusive, and by which 
the half-opened doors have been chained so as to deny 
ingress to women, are in more than one way worthy of 
attention. 
“ Until recent legislation converted the business of 
selling and dispensing drugs into a close guild governed 
by the Pharmaceutical Society, it was open to all the- 
world. There were many sufficient considerations for - 
that measure. Free trade in poisons afforded facilities 
to the prisoner and the suicide ; the hazards to life inci¬ 
dental to the manipulation and sale of drugs with or 
without medical prescription were increased by the want 
of education of the vendor and dispenser, which went 
sometimes to the extent of complete ignorance of the art 
of reading ordinary labels and directions involving 
technical terms, and by carelessness, which permitted 
the employment of mere children as assistants at the 
counter. It was not possible to apply educational tests 
to ordinary traders, nor to impose regulations on an un¬ 
registered and motley body of shopkeepers. The Phar¬ 
maceutical Society, a voluntary educational body called 
into existence chiefly by the exertions of the late Mr. 
Jacob Bell, was therefore erected into a State institution, 
acting under the authority of the Privy Council. It was ■ 
invested with very extensive and unique privileges. It 
combines three functions. Its Council has the power of' 
a guild, regulating the conduct and mode of business in 
some important particulars of the members of the trade ; 
it is the proprietary owner of a large school, through 
which candidates for introduction to the pharmaceutical 
business are passed ; and it is the sole examining body 
which possesses the privilege of examining such candi¬ 
dates and of giving them the right to enter upon the: 
business of chemists and druggists. 
