698 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 1, 1873_ 
(fcrapftot. 
_ *** No notice can be taken of anonymous communica* 
tions. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti¬ 
cated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
f07' publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
A Valentine’s Reply. 
“ Press me not, ’beseech you, so ; 
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’ the world, 
So soon as yours, could win me ; so it should now, 
Were there necessity in’your request, although 
’Twere needful I denied it.”— Winter's Tale. 
Did I possess a trace of wit and the pen of a ready writer, 
The ladies’ virtues I’d describe, and nothing should be 
brighter. 
How much I prize their loving hearts when in their proper 
places, 
And how I sorely dread to see them kicking o’er the traces ! 
I know that at the bedside of the dear and suffering sick 
Their kindness and their gentleness, their ready help and 
quick, 
Are loved beyond the sympathy that man can ever show, 
And sometimes valued more than all the skill he can bestow. 
How well the}' shine at Christmas-time in the merry mazy 
dance, 
In all the little children’s games of forfeits and of chance ! 
At conversaziones and at private scenes theatrical. 
Garden fetes and croquet too, pleasures good and practical; 
In magazines of many kinds they are never out of place. 
Could man descant as well as they on point and Brussels 
lace ; 
Or measure, make, and well design the newest bridal dresses, 
And fit their little feet with shoes and curl their golden 
tresses ? 
I cannot reconcile the thought e’en in imagination 
That ladies, like the Yankee, should expect do beat creation. 
I could not bear to see their hands as soft as alabaster 
Begrimed all o’er with dirty pill and nasty smelling plaster. 
Oh ! may I never see them with their chignons in profusion 
Attempt to shake the tinctures or prepare the cold infusion. 
How could they climb the shaky steps'to clean the bottles 
dusty, 
Or go below amongst the wets into the cellar musty ? 
Their sleek round arms were never made to work the iron 
mortar, 
But some opine they might assist to cut the salary shorter. 
How gladly, I ween, would he resign unto the beauteous fair 
The cares, the trials, the honours too, of the Presidential 
chair, 
Could he but be persuaded that the shades of Allen, Payne. 
and Bell, 
"Would whisper in his ear these words, Mr. President, ’Tis 
Well. 
-r , , M. P. S. 
Jj-nd-n, 21th February, 1873. 
Pharmaceutical Women. 
The question of admitting ladies to the ranks of the 
Pharmaceutical Society will probably be a subject of discus¬ 
sion at our next annual meeting, and as the action of the 
Council regarding their admission has recently been com¬ 
mented on by the editor of the Chemist and Druggist in a 
way to mislead readers who are not fully acquainted with the 
difference between registration under the Pharmacy Acts of 
18o2 and 1863 ; and enrolment in the Pharmaceutical So- 
venture (knowing how extensively that journal is 
read by men who also read your Journal) to trouble you 
with a few remarks. I feel the more at liberty to do this 
because my name has appeared somewhat prominently in op¬ 
position to the ladies—an unenviable position it may be but 
one which my sense of the welfare of the Pharmaceutical 
Society has compelled me to assume. 
,,^ e s , C/ie > nist ^d Druggist says of the refusal to elect 
three females as “ Apprentices of the Society — 
“ The Board of Examiners had no authority to refuse these 
ladies; the Board simply enacts definite requirements, and 
these were complied with to the letter. Putting it in the 
mildest form, it was scarcely delicate in the Council to upset 
the natural working out of the decision of the Examiners.” 
Your readers should be informed that the Council had 
neither the power nor the inclination to upset the decision 
of the Board of Examiners. On the report of the Board,, 
the Registrar places the names of all who pass the exami¬ 
nations on their respective registers without reference to the' 
Council , and persons so registered have all the rights of exer¬ 
cising their business to the fullest extent under the Phar¬ 
macy Acts. 
The only question which came before the Council on the' 
5th of February was, whether Alice Marion Hart, Louisa 
Stammwitz, and Rosa Coombes Minshull should be admitted 
as apprentices of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
Now, Sir, these ladies are utter strangers to me, therefore 
no personal feeling could influence me in moving that they 
be not admitted; but as I have always held that the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society was intended to be a Society of men,, 
that certain disadvantages would arise from its being a mixed 
Society of men and women, and that the admission of females 
as apprentices would be only a stepping-stone to their ad¬ 
mission as members, I felt bound to oppose them on the- 
threshold. 
As to the concluding words of the Chemist and Druggist,. 
that the decision of the Council is “ as illegal as it is unjust 
I cannot dispute that point, because it is neither one nor 
the other. It is not unjust, because these ladies will still be- 
allowed to continue their studies,Jand, if they pass future exa¬ 
minations, to b.ecome chemists and druggists or pharmaceu¬ 
tical chemists, just as men do who never connect themselves^ 
with the Pharmaceutical Society. 
It is not illegal, because all power to elect or reject candi¬ 
dates for admission to the Society is vested in the Council,, 
and having given my “ serious attention ” to the remarks; 
of your contemporary, I rise from the consideration with, 
my “sense of honour ” unembarrassed. I should indeed be 
sorry to throw any impediment in the way of ladies who de¬ 
sire to work out for themselves a means of self-support, 
and in this case I am not doing so. I think, however, 
there may be more fitting occupations for them than listen¬ 
ing to the description of bodily ailments over our shop 
counters. It is true you may retort on me that in our 
bodily afflictions none can minister so well to our sufferings- 
as women, but this is in the privacy of the household, and 1 
I cannot help thinking the tendency of the present day is< 
too much towards upsetting that natural and scriptural ar¬ 
rangement of the sexes which has worked tolerably well 
for four thousand years. 
George W. Sandford. 
February 21th, 1873. 
Sir,—Albeit that I am generally considered a peaceably- 
disposed man, I cannot but feel the call that is made for the’ 
expression of a strong and unqualified protest against the 
steps that are now being taken to open the gates of phar¬ 
macy to female students. 
Now, Sir, I have never had the slightest objection to par¬ 
take of such preparations from the hands of my fair friends 
as emanate from the department of culinary chemistry. X 
drink my cup of tea with a grateful acknowledgment of the 
rights of the sex ; I am content to remain silent on the sub¬ 
ject of untinned copper vessels, and the cleansing of leaden, 
cisterns ; my wife’s bottle of home-made pickles is consumed, 
with absolute trustfulness and mental tranquillity. But X 
must say that if in a state of semi-consciousness from serious 
illness, I were dependent on the feminine perception of the 
distinction existing between Croton oil and its milder brother 
Castor, or again oxalic acid and magnesic sulphate, I say 
that I should hasten to make my peace with this world. Do 
not. we read continually of hospital nurses dosing their 
patients with carbolic acid? Can we forget the ludicrous 
incident of the nurse who exhibited diluted sulphuric acid, 
in immediate sequence to chalk mixture, and so converted, 
the internal arrangements of her patient into a gasometer? 
We have. Sir, in the present day, female colliers, fish¬ 
mongers, clerks and doctors. The aspirations of the sex have 
been encouraged until they have overstepped the bounds of 
decorum of by-gone days. The landmarks have been re¬ 
moved, and encroachments, whose results are visible in the- 
universal depreciation of all labour, both in quality and re¬ 
muneration, force themselves at length upon our notice, and 
demand our indignant appeal. 
When we consider how immeasurably the feelings of. 
women surpass those of men in delicacy of organization, we- 
can well believe that if the trifling incidents of ordinary 
business life affect them so strongly, how great must be their 
mental confusion, when harassed by some disappointed 
