November ll, 1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
381 
THE PRELIMINARY AND MINOR 
EXAMINATIONS.* 
BY WILLIAM SOUTHALL. 
As tlie studies of most of those now present have 
for their secondary, if not primary, object, the ac¬ 
quirement of sufficient knowledge to enable them to 
pass the examinations at Bloomsbury Square, and 
as I have the honour to be a member of the Board 
of Examiners, it was very natural that you should 
ask me to open the session by a paper on the subject. 
I have therefore hastily thrown together, as well as 
time would permit, a few practical hints that may 
be useful in your work.of preparation. 
Let me impress upon you that the object of the 
examination is not to force you to cram your heads 
with ill-digested knowledge that may or may not be 
ready when "wanted, and will be pretty certain to 
evaporate quickly after the examination is over, but 
it is intended to ascertain if you are sufficiently in¬ 
formed on certain subjects to be qualified to perform 
certain duties. It is obvious that the great aim of 
study is to gain knowledge, which is power; the ex¬ 
amination is a means to this end, not the end itself. 
One man may have an excellent memory, and trust 
to it too much, not taking the trouble to understand 
what he learns, and consequently his store will be 
of but little use to him; whilst another who has 
carefully sought out the bearings of his progress, 
although he may not have got through quite so much, 
•will have obtained a mastery of his subject that will 
stand him in good service, not only at the examina¬ 
tion-table, but for the purposes of his profession. 
With the exception of Latin, the standard of 
knowledge required for the Preliminary Examina¬ 
tion is one that ought to be possessed by every boy 
of the middle class before he leaves school; and, as 
regards Latin, it is now well known that a knowledge 
of it is required by those who enter the business, 
and, therefore, it becomes a parent’s duty to see 
that his son has the opportunity of learning it. The 
education given at the British School here, is amply 
sufficient for the requirements of the examination in 
English grammar, composition and arithmetic, but 
then there is no Latin. At many of the grammar 
schools Latin is taught to the prejudice of English; 
whilst man}" of the private schools have the reputa¬ 
tion of giving but a poor education. I suppose that 
each of these causes contributes to swell the hitherto 
large number of failures to pass, which must be an¬ 
noying both to parents and pupils. The kindest and 
most judicious plan would be, for every druggist when 
he takes an apprentice, to require that he should first 
pass the Preliminary, as he would do so better when 
fresh from school; of course there are many cases in 
which this would not be practicable, but, as a general 
rule, the earlier the education of a boy is directed to the 
course he is likely to follow in life, the better it is for 
him. With regard to older men who have not had 
an early education in Latin, they will find it more 
advantageous to turn their attention to the two phar¬ 
maceutical books than to Csesar, as much of the 
phraseology in these must be already familiar to 
them, and the number of Latin words in them is 
much less than in the latter; but whether they 
study Caesar or not, they should attend the Latin 
classes now open to them. 
* Read at a meeting of the Midland Counties Chemists’ 
Association, Oct. 26th, 1871. 
Third Series, No. 72. 
We now come to the Minor Examination. The 
first subject in the list to be found in the printed 
regulations, is Prescriptions—reading prescriptions. 
If the student is engaged in a dispensing business, 
he has already in the course of his duties to trans¬ 
late prescriptions daily, but his knowledge requires 
extension. There are printed books, such as ‘ Se- 
lecta e Praescriptis ’ to study; there are also, in many 
large towns, volumes of autograph prescriptions which 
may be referred to, and these are especially useful. 
The Society owes to Mr. Lice’s labours a splendid 
collection of such ; and it is our own fault, as chemists 
of Birmingham, that hitherto we have had no portion 
of it, as until lately nothing has been done here to 
aid pharmaceutical education. Such being the case, 
I am glad to hear that steps are being taken by 
some of our younger members to make a collection, 
but in the meantime the volumes of copies which 
exist in most businesses of any standing are not to be 
despised. The collection of prescriptions in London 
is, I believe, available to students under certain re¬ 
gulations. As far as I have seen the prescriptions 
to be found in the examiners’ volumes, those written 
by English physicians are not at all more difficult 
than the average generally met with in business ; 
but when an examiner is told the same day that un- 
decimam means nine, ten and eleven (or eleventh), 
or a candidate does not know what urgente dolore 
means, or says that the last word means solemn or 
dolorous, it is obvious that his knowledge of Latin 
is rather deficient. The man, too, who says that 
manus means body, or sternum, stern, would find 
still more difficulty in coming to a right conclusion 
as to the part of the body intended, if he met with 
“ Hypochondrio dextro ” in the prescriptions of a 
well-known Birmingham physician. A candidate 
may say when he meets with an unusual word, that 
if at home he would look for it in a dictionary, which 
is a reasonable remark; but dictionaries often give 
two or three meanings, and it requires some insight 
to choose the right one,—as in case of a mixture 
ordered to be taken, spiritus difficultate ,—and this 
can only be acquired by study or practice; more¬ 
over, words much abbreviated are hard ‘to find. 
This brings us to the .task of reading abbreviated 
words in full. To an assistant in good practice this 
is often more difficult than translating, unless he has a 
good knowledge of Latin, as most physicians abbre¬ 
viate their words more or less, and thus he seldom 
sees them in their proper form. I would recommend 
the student to make a practice of writing out a pre¬ 
scription or two in full every da}r, taking advice from 
a pharmaceutical Latin, grammar or other guide to 
begin with, when he will soon get into the right way, 
and the practice once gained will be easily followed. 
A little book, called Britten’s ‘ Dispenser’s Vade- 
mecum,’ is a useful compendium of pharmaceutical 
Latin, and is arranged alphabetically. Practical 
Dispensing comes next on the list—to weigh, mea¬ 
sure and compound medicines. 
Mi see 8. A. was once a much more common affix 
to a prescription than it has become of late, but the 
art is, or ought to be, none the less understood. No¬ 
thing but practice and good instruction will make a 
good dispenser, but surely the importance of the 
office is worth the pains. Let us examine a few 
points in which a right or a wrong mode of procedure 
is evidenced. Firstly, in weighing. One man picks 
up his scales as if they burned his fingers, and they 
wobble about (excuse the word) in a most perplexing 
