916 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 17, 1873. 
The course proposed by the Secretary was ordered to be 
adopted. 
Number of Members. —In answer to a question from the 
Chairman, the Assistant-Secretary said that the total 
number of names on the books was 2071, including 17 
honorary members and about 60 candidates for member¬ 
ship. 
Bell and Hills Fund. —Mr. Benger (Secretary) reported 
that he had written to five or six prominent members of 
the Conference with the object of obtaining suggestions 
as to the best method of appropriating the money which 
Mr. Hills had confided to the Executive Committee for 
the promotion of pharmaceutical education and the culti¬ 
vation of original research and pharmaceutical science 
generally. The following was a summary of the answers 
he had received :— 
Mr. Reynolds thought that the Committee meeting in 
May might draw up a set of rules, and immediately after¬ 
wards invite special attention to the subject by directly 
laying it before their leading members and by offering a 
statement to editors for publication in the usual way. 
There was no reason why a subsequent committee in 
June should not make grants that might be applied for 
by individuals ; but at all events before the annual meet¬ 
ing took place members should be invited to name special 
subjects of considerable extent or importance, and if these 
required combined energies and involved expense, the 
Committee would aid with their advice, and as in the case 
of individual workers with grants from the fund. With 
respect to the ten-guinea grant of books Mr. Reynolds 
thought that although the Pharmaceutical Society was 
prepared to contribute to libraries, there was an inherent 
merit in Mr. Hills’ original gift for provincial libraries 
that should preserve it alive. As to medals, to trust to a 
medal having no money value was not desirable, and he 
was against giving medals. 
Mr. Groves thought that no other stimulus than desire 
for distinction was necessary to induce members to under¬ 
take absolutely new work, but the equally useful labour 
of checking and revising the labours of others who, per¬ 
haps, had been in haste to be original was not so attrac¬ 
tive ; the fund, therefore, would be well applied in 
repeating experimental work whenever experimental cor¬ 
roboration might seem desirable. The French societies 
nominated commissions to test the conclusion of almost 
every pharmaceutical writer in France. Some reputations 
might disappear in the process, but in the interests of 
■truth such consequences should not be regretted. 
Mr. Tichborne thought the Fund should be entirely 
devoted to Pharmaceutical science. He thought (a) re¬ 
searches might be undertaken with a view to the expur¬ 
gation of useless preparations from the British pharma¬ 
copoeia ; ( b ) that a prize should be offered for an essay on 
the perfecting of official formulas, for although this was a 
matter which should be encouraged by the Medical 
Council, it was also a subject of national importance ; 
<c) another prize might be offered for a natural history of 
the materia medica ; (cl) an essay was wanted on the best 
disinfectants and the mode of using them ; (e) also one on 
"the economy of alcohol in tinctures and other pharma- 
copoeial preparations ; (/) investigations might be made 
on the application of the spectroscope, microscope, and 
other physical instruments to pharmacy. The prizes 
should not be too small, or good men would not compete. 
Mr. Brady, Mr. Williams, Mr. Benger, and Professor 
Attfield concurred in the opinion that the best mode of 
procedure would be to follow, with modifications, the 
course pursued by the British Association, which had for 
many years granted money in aid of researches in science. 
Mr. Benger submitted the draft of a circular, including 
rules relating to the application of the Bell and Hills 
Fund. After some slight alterations, Mr. Schacht moved 
and Mr. Williams seconded a resolution which was carried 
unanimously—“ That the statements and rules now read 
be printed and distributed in the manner suggested.” 
Annual Meeting , 1873.—Professor Attfield reported 
that the usual blue list had been revised and a copy for¬ 
warded to each member. He had for some time been in 
correspondence with the officers of the local committee in 
Bradford, and he anticipated that the meetings in Sep¬ 
tember (Tuesday, the 16th, and Wednesday, the 17th) 
would be thoroughly successful. 
Annual Meeting , 1874.—Professor Attfield said that at 
the next meeting of the Committee it would be necessary 
to consider the question of the place of meeting for 1874. 
The British Association had decided on assembling at 
Belfast in the autumn of that year. Hitherto the Con¬ 
ference had met in the same town as the Association, on 
the Tuesday and Wednesday immediately preceding the 
Association days, a course which benefited both bodies to 
about the same extent as regarded increased attendances 
at the respective meetings,—though that extent of benefit 
was more important to their own gathering than to that 
of the Association, which mustered twenty times their 
number—and it was to be hoped that this convenient and 
favourite course might be possible next year. It was true 
that Belfast was a long way off, and that ninety-nine 
hundredths of the members resided in England and Scot¬ 
land, still distance need not prevent a successful meeting 
being held if local support were strong. Unfortunately, 
party feeling in pharmacy was somewhat stirred in Ireland 
just now by prospective legislation, and might become 
more so, and it was important that a neutral body like the 
Conference, which was open to all comers, and which was 
established not only “ for the encouragement of pharma¬ 
ceutical research,” but also “ for the promotion of friendly 
intercourse and union amongst pharmaceutists,” should not 
take any step which might be one of apparent sympathy 
with a portion only of the followers of pharmacy or its 
branches. He had during the past six months corresponded 
on the subject with some of the members of the Conference 
residing in Ireland, and would state the results at the 
next meeting of the Committee. 
The Committee decided to meet again on Thursday, 
May 21st. 
PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY. 
The annual meeting was held at the College Building 
March 31st, 1873. Thirty-five members present. Dillwyn 
Parrish, President, in the chair. After some routine busi¬ 
ness had been transacted, Professor Proctor read, on behalf 
of the committee of deceased members, a memoir of Pro¬ 
fessor Edward Parrish ; and after a number of expressions 
of the deep and affectionate regard in which he was held, 
the memoir was directed to be published in the Journal, 
whence the following abstract is taken :— 
Edward Parrish was born in Philadelphia on the 31st 
of May, 1822, in Arch Street below Fourth, and was the 
seventh son of the late eminent physician and surgeon, Dr. 
Joseph Parrish, and Susanna, daughter of John Cox, of 
Burlington, N.J., both members of the Society of Friends. 
He was educated in the Friends’ School in Philadelphia, 
where he is said to have been well instructed in elementary 
studies, and to have acquired a fair knowledge of the 
higher branches and the classics. He early manifested 
an aptitude for scientific pursuits, and in the year 1838 
entered as an apprentice the pharmaceutical store of his 
brother Dillwyn. He is reported to have been attentive 
and faithful in the discharge of his shop duties and 
responsibilities. Availing himself of the favourable op¬ 
portunities afforded in the store and at the College of 
Pharmacy, near by, he acquired an excellent knowledge 
of his business, for which his taste and inclination were 
well adapted. His first course was under the instruction 
of Professors Franklin, Bache, and Joseph Carson, and 
his last under Professors Carson and William R. Fisher, 
in the session 1841--42. In the spring of 1842 Edward 
Parrish took his degree in pharmacy in the Philadelphia 
College, having written his thesis on “Statice Caroliniana,” 
published in Vol. XIV. American Journal of Pharmacy. 
In 1843 he purchased a drug store, previously conducted 
