668 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[February 22,1873. 
THE MEDICAL RECORD. 
Professional journalism is well represented in all 
tlie three faculties. But of the three, medicine pro¬ 
bably has the most numerous as well as the best con¬ 
ducted organs. The British Medical Journal, the 
Lancet, the Medical Times and Gazette— to say no¬ 
thing of certain minor journals—are periodicals of 
■which the profession may well be proud; and indeed 
their circulation not only within but beyond its area is 
proof positive of their ability to assert for professional 
subjects an ultra-professional interest. At the same 
time there was room for another interpretation of 
the medical journalist’s duties. Depending mainly 
for their contributions on English schools, the 
journals we have named reflect that insularity 
of idea and practice which, justly or unjustly, has 
been advanced as an imputation against English 
medicine. To gather up, select, and epitomize for 
the English practitioner, above all for the general 
practitioner, the latest results of continental obser¬ 
vation, research, and induction,—to keep him en 
rapport with the newest principles and practice re¬ 
cognized in the great European, Transatlantic, and 
colonial schools,—was a task imperfectly performed 
by the existing journals, and still remaining for a 
fresh-comer to discharge. 
In the Medical Record, of which six numbers are 
now before us, we have an admirable fulfilment of 
the desideratum. In its dexterously-conducted 
pages insularity is replaced by catholicity of idea. 
It gives from week to week a careful digest of me¬ 
dical and surgical opinion and practice as they pre¬ 
vail from Dorpat to San Francisco, from Utrecht 
to Melbourne. The authorities from which the 
Medical Record quotes are all well-considered and 
accurately-estimated ones; and nothing but the 
pith or marrow of the multifarious sources on which 
it draws is placed before its readers. It is quite as¬ 
tonishing to consider the amount of matter which 
it compresses into its well-printed columns. The 
absence of prolixity; of “the vanity of petty au¬ 
thorship;” of the self-satisfied citation of personal 
and local successes; of the features, in short, which 
make so much of our medical journalism wearisome 
and unprofitable, is one of its most effective recom¬ 
mendations. 
Fortified by its perusal, no medical practitioner^ 
in whatever department, or even specialty, need 
blame himself for being behindhand in the theory or 
practice of his profession ; while the suggestiveness 
of its matter will often indicate and inspire new 
ideas, methods, or processes in the emergencies 
which occur to every busy practitioner. We cannot 
conclude our notice of the Medical Record without 
commending its exceeding elegance of production in 
matters of arrangement, printing, and even paper. 
It is, in more senses than one,To medical, what the 
Pall Mall Gazette has been to general, journalism. 
THE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION. 
Some letters which appear in another page on this 
subject, and in reply to Mr. Whitfield, furnish evi¬ 
dence in support of the opinion that the mode of 
conducting these examinations is not satisfactory, 
and suggest the propriety of their being handed over 
altogether to competent bodies whose business is 
more to deal with such general educational matters. 
We do not perceive that the views expressed at the 
Council meeting, or even the remarks of our corres¬ 
pondents, convey anything that can reasonably be 
construed as insulting to our local secretaries. 
The conduct of the Preliminary examination is 
more a matter for the schoolmaster than for the 
pharmacist, a fair knowledge of English grammar, 
arithmetic and Latin being all that is required; and 
though we have reason to be thankful to those who, 
in the capacity of local secretaries, have given their 
time and attention to the conduct of these examina¬ 
tions,—sometimes no doubt at much inconvenience' 
to themselves,—we think that it must be obvious to 
all, that in the absence of any need for the technical 
knowledge of the pharmacist on the part of the exa¬ 
miners, it must be only a matter of time when the 
principle involved in the acceptance of examination 
certificates from accredited non-pharmaceutical 
bodies shall become the general rule in the Preli¬ 
minary examinations of the Pharmaceutical So¬ 
ciety. __ 
Of the 12,128 samples reported to have been exa¬ 
mined at the Inland Bevenue Laboratory during 
the year ending March "1st, 1872, 2241 were received 
from the Customs, and 933 from the Board of Trade. 
We learn that the Admiralty and India Office also' 
have applied for permission to have some commercial 
samples examined, with a view to guarding them¬ 
selves against any fraud through contractors send¬ 
ing in goods worse than sample. Complaint is in¬ 
directly made of the want of room for practical 
work and storage of samples, and it is a wonder 
that such a large amount of work has been done in 
so limited a space. Any one who compares the' 
well-fitted laboratory of the Pharmaceutical Society, 
or that recently built at South Kensington Museum, 
with the inconvenient and badly arranged place 
where so much and such important work is done for 
the Government, must feel surprised that better 
rooms have not been set apart for one of the most 
useful and important departments of the Inland 
Revenue. 
We are glad to find, from a note appended to the 
Secretary’s list of subscriptions to the Benevolent 
Fund received during the month of January, that a 
suggestion made in a former number of this Journal 
has been carried into practice. Were other of our 
readers to follow the example there set, they would 
be able to exercise the double privilege of assisting 
to educate the public to abandon a very objection¬ 
able custom, and of contributing towards the allevia¬ 
tion of tlie sorrows of some who have suffered from iL 
