April 12, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
819 
were withheld in the report. This statement which justi¬ 
fied me in again moving in opposition is also withheld. 
No doubt all these omissions may be purely accidental. 
The consequences are, however, the same. I am misre- 
ported, and possibly to some degree damaged, and what is 
more important, the members fail to receive the fair and full 
report to which they are entitled. 
Perhaps the imperfection of the reports arises from the 
system under which they are obtained. It would be well, 
therefore, to adopt some other plan better suited for the 
purpose, than to permit the evils of the present system to 
continue. 
In December last, when Mr. Schacht proposed the 
amended regulations of the Board of Examiners, he first 
moved “that the question as to the Council possessing the 
legal powers to carry the proposed alterations into effect 
be referred to the Parliamentary Committee,” and imme¬ 
diately afterwards, -with needless precipitation, and without 
having solved the legal doubt, a majority of the Council 
voted their enactment. 
In due time amended bye-laws are sought for to empower 
the Board of Examiners to carry out the amended regula¬ 
tions, and the proposed altered bye-laws are submitted to 
Mr. Flux, the Society’s solicitor, for his approval. 
To the following portion of the first draft of the amended 
bye-law, section 10, clause 1G, Mr. Flux made the following 
marginal note:— 
Part of Proposed Bye-law. 
After the 31st day of De¬ 
cember, 1876, no person shall 
be admitted to the Minor 
examination who has not 
been registered or employed 
as an apprentice or student at 
least three years previously. 
Mr. Flux’s Marginal Note. 
This appears to us to vary 
from the intention that the 
examinations shall be freely 
open to all the world, and 
we reccm nend its erasure. 
Mr. Flux also makes the following note to another pro¬ 
posed amendment of bye-law, what is equally applicable to 
section 10, clause 16. “ The Statutes contemplate that 
each examination shall be complete in itself and open to all 
the world, but proper regulations may be made for the 
conduct of the examinations.” 
Before the Parliamentary Committee Mr. Flux also 
maintained with great force and clearness that the charter 
and statutes gave no power to exact a three years’ interval 
between the Preliminary and Minor examinations. He 
averred that a reasonable time might be exacted—say a 
few days,—but he maintained that a period of three years 
was, in his opinion, unreasonable and illegal. 
Having read and re-read the Acts and charter, with a 
view to discover the powers necessary to enforce the term 
and interval between the Preliminary and Minor examina¬ 
tions fixed by the amended bye-law as accepted by the 
Council, I was not unprepared to find that Mr. Flux, in 
his capacity of legal adviser to the Society, recommended 
its erasure, and that he so far independently justified the 
position of opposition I had taken up. 
I was, however, filled with wondering amazement when 
I discovered at the last meeting of the Council that Mr. 
Flux had completely altered his views, because the words 
“ apprentice or student” had been removed from the pro¬ 
posed bye-law. The words, about which there surely must 
hang a spell, still remain, although not precisely in the 
same position. 
To facilitate a comparison of the proposed amended bye¬ 
law submitted to Mr. Flux, and which he pronounced 
to be illegal, and the amended bye-law he now pronounces 
to be in conformity to law, I place them side by side. 
The Illegal Bye-law. 
After the 31st day of De¬ 
cember, 1876, no person shall 
be admitted to the Minor 
examination who has not 
been registered or employed 
as an apprentice or student 
at least three years pre¬ 
viously. 
The Legal Bye-law. 
After the 31st day of De¬ 
cember, 1876, no person shall 
be allowed to pass the Major 
or the Minor examinations, 
unless he shall satisfy the 
examiners that for three 
years he has been registered 
and employed as an appren¬ 
tice or student, or has other¬ 
wise for three years been 
practically engaged in the 
translation and dispensing 
of prescriptions. 
Perhaps my obtuseness and want of legal training in¬ 
capacitate me from comprehending the subtle distinction 
which may exist between the two formulae. 
I can only congratulate myself under these circumstances, 
that I compound physic as a vocation, and not expound law. 
The question of legality is a very grave one, and as I 
honestly believed that the Council was over-stepping its 
powers, I have done my best in an open manner to oppose 
the progress of the bye-law in its various stages. 
If the Council be competent to stretch the law in one 
direction, why not in another ? 
The plea of advantage to the Society is urged on behalf 
of the illegal test. This is dangerous ground on which to 
move. Bather let fresh power be sought from Parliament 
if it can be shown that it is necessary and advisable to 
institute such a change. 
I have tried in vain to procure, from all likely quarters, 
evidence that an appreciable number of persons pass the 
examinations who have not been previously subjected to a 
term of apprenticeship. 
If proof of this kind had been adduced, there would 
have been a show of reason to justify a compulsory term 
if legally obtained and exacted. Not a tittle of evi¬ 
dence,—which evidence should have been the ground-work 
for the proposed alterations,—has been offered. 
It is not yet too late to halt in the illegal course, and I 
trust that the members will, at the special general meeting, 
refuse to sanction the objectionable bye-law, which if passed, 
will remain a precedent of illegality. 
205, St. John’s Road, E.C., Robert Hampson. 
April 8th, 1873. 
P.S. —I am reported—in the report of the April meeting 
of Council—to have proposed eighteen members for the 
Board of Examiners. This is a mistake, Mr. Schacht made 
this proposition. 
PV* We publish Mr. Hampson’s letter in extenso, though 
it appears to contain matter which is not subject to report¬ 
ing. In justice to ourselves we may add, that nothing was 
cut out or withheld from the draft of Mr. Hampson’s 
speech handed to us by the reporter appointed to take down 
the Council proceedings, and likewise that Mr. Hampson 
had full opportunity to make any requisite correction in 
the proof-sheets.—Ed. Ph. Journ.] 
Pharmacy in Ireland. 
Sir,—A great amount of misunderstanding seems to 
exist in the minds of English chemists regarding the state 
of pharmacy in Ireland, especially with regard to the posi¬ 
tion occupied by chemists and druggists there. 
The Irish chemists and druggists must not be confounded 
with those bearing the same name in England and Scot¬ 
land. They are merely retailers of drugs, and have never 
been trained to dispense physicians’ prescriptions. _ In fact, 
such a class may exist in England and Scotland in a few 
years, especially if the standard of pharmaceutical educa¬ 
tion be raised much higher. The Irish apothecaries are the 
Irish pharmacists proper, and in the larger towns, where 
they have given up the practice of medicine, and have de¬ 
voted themselves to the retailing of drugs and the dispens¬ 
ing of prescriptions, pharmacy is in as flourishing a condi¬ 
tion as it is either in England or Scotland. But the very 
fact of so many apothecaries having recognized that the 
practice of medicine and the practice of pharmacy ought to 
be vested in separate individuals, proves that a change in 
the existing state of things is required. Either the apothe¬ 
caries must give up the medical part of their examination, 
or a new class must be instituted, having equal privileges 
with them in the practice of pharmacy. 
At a meeting of the United Society of Chemists and 
Druggists of Ireland held recently, it was proposed that the 
Pharmaceutical Society be requested to extend their opera¬ 
tions to Ireland. It would certainly be an advantage to- 
have all the pharmacists of the United Kingdom subject to 
the same examinations ", but it would be a great mistake to- 
lower the examination—permitting pharmacists to com¬ 
mence business—to our Minor, where an examination equal 
to our Major might be easily enforced. 
The draft bill drawn up by the Court of Apothecaries (a- 
copy of which was printed in the first volume of the present 
series of the Pharmaceutical Journal, page 405) would 
meet all the requirements of the case. When this bill was- 
