£94 the PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [January 20, 1872. 
mit to be utterly useless for him. Botany, though use¬ 
less, is at any rate interesting; but can the same be said 
of the other topics against which I have spoken ? 
It matters little whether or not these obnoxious re¬ 
quirements are less insisted upon now than before. 
AVhat we want, and what we have a right to demand, is 
their exclusion from all the examinations. They are an in¬ 
tolerable burden to the candidates, and certainly reflect 
mo credit on the examiners. For reasons already ex¬ 
plained, the omission of botany too appears to me highly 
desirable. 
There is yet another subject which I feel sure ought 
;to be excluded from the examinations, viz. dispensing. 
An examiner cannot possibly judge of a dispenser’s 
.•abilities by seeing him prepare a single prescription. 
Many clever men are rather awkward in their manipu¬ 
lations when they are being watched, more particularly 
.so when they work in a strange place, and are being 
watched by an examiner. A slight mishap or accident 
may thus cause an experienced dispenser to appear defi¬ 
cient ; whilst a far less qualified candidate, possessed of 
plenty of self-confidence, will probably pass first-rate. 
We generally find the most ignorant persons have the 
highest opinion of themselves, are the least nervous and 
the most plucky. No sensible chemist [would ever think 
•of forming a correct estimate of the qualification or dis¬ 
qualification of a newly-engaged assistant by seeing 
him dispense the first prescription. Is it likely, then, 
that an examiner should be able to do so F The reading 
of prescriptions and the detection of errors and over¬ 
doses forms a part—a very legitimate one, I think—of 
Ihe examinations ; and if the candidates were asked to 
-explain how they would dispense the prescriptions 
placed before them, their knowledge of dispensing would 
be put to as fair a test as an examination can afford. 
The Latin directions of those prescriptions ought to be 
«uch as a dispenser commonly meets with in his occupa¬ 
tion. The members of the medical profession are be¬ 
ginning to use plain full English directions in place of 
the less distinct Latin abbreviations, in which one letter 
frequently stands for a whole word, the same letter 
being sometimes used for two or three different words; 
.and I believe the time is fast approaching in which the 
English language alone will be employed for the direc¬ 
tions of English prescriptions. Some of the directions 
which candidates have to read and translate in the 
Modified and Minor examinations are of a most uncom¬ 
mon kind, and contain terms which our young men 
never meet with in the prescriptions they are daily dis¬ 
pensing. 
I trust I have succeeded in pointing out the main 
•causes which lead to the failure of many well-qualified 
men in the pharmaceutical examinations, and in throw¬ 
ing some light on the success of others who do not de¬ 
serve to pass. Amongst the latter, there are many who 
.are crammed up not only in those subjects in which the 
■crammed student must have very great advantages over 
nil others, but also in the legitimate and scientific require¬ 
ments. I am in a position to state that men who had 
learnt off by heart about five hundred answers to five hun¬ 
dred questions, such as they knew were generally asked in 
the Minor examination have passed after a course of six 
or eight weeks’ cramming. Such facts have oozed out, 
and the examiners, I understand, are determined to pre¬ 
vent such candidates from passing in future, by making 
the examinations more difficult still. If it is really true 
that the examiners are about to adopt that plan, or that 
they have adopted it already, it would be clear that they 
themselves admit their having hitherto been imposed 
upon bv crammed and ignorant men. Nothing, indeed, 
-could exceed the admirable candour of this admission. 
Need any one tell you that any competent examiner 
ought to be able to distinguish between real knowledge 
and superficial cramming, without making the examina¬ 
tions still more stringent than they have been ? 
In drawing to a close, I feel persuaded that you will 
all heartily share my conviction of the necessity for a 
thorough reform in the present system of examinations. 
If such important cities as Manchester and Liverpool are 
denied the privilege of local examinations, and, if our 
young men are put to the expense of presenting them¬ 
selves in London or Edinburgh, we are doubly entitled 
to demand that the examinations shall be conducted in 
such a manner as to draw a fair line of distinction be¬ 
tween qualified and non-qualified candidates, so that a 
chemist who is fully competent for all his duties may 
not be rejected, but that his name will occupy the de¬ 
served place in the list of the successful. 
The Chairman referring to the remarks of Mr. Sie- 
bold, on the exemption of assistants from compulsory 
| examination, said that the provisions of the Pharmacy 
Act were very incongruous and unfair in one respect. 
He could, for instance, open a number of shops in different 
parts of the city, or even in different towns, and place 
in each of those shops an unexamined assistant to manage 
its business ; and even if he never entered the shops 
once from year’s end to year’s end himself, provided the 
businesses were bona fide his own, the arrangement would 
be strictly legal; the Legislature did not interfere with 
him. Again, if he were taken seriously ill, and should 
be laid aside from business for any number of years, so 
as not to interfere in its management in the slightest, it 
would be perfectly legal for him to leave it under the 
entire management of an unqualified assistant as long as 
ever he liked ; but, if he died and his widow should pro¬ 
cure the services of a gentleman who had passed his 
Major examination, and be one of the most competent 
men in England as manager, she could not legally carry 
on the business for a day. This he thought as absurd a 
piece of legislation as was ever placed on the statute 
book, and was very hard, to say the least, on the widows 
of druggists. 
The practical education of apprentices in dispensing 
was a difficulty in this respect, that on the one hand, 
where a good dispensing trade was carried' on and one 
or two assistants were kept, an employer liked to be able 
to tell his customers with truth, that their prescriptions 
were always compounded by competent persons. Now, 
if this were literally carried out, and faith kept with the 
public, an apprentice in such an establishment would 
never have the chance of dispensing a single prescrip¬ 
tion. On the other hand, no druggist had a right to 
take an apprentice, and probably receive with him a 
handsome premium, and send him away at the end of 
his term unable to dispense. He thought that by tact 
and management there was a mode of steering between 
Scylla and Charybdis. His own views and practice 
were these. For the first two years he would not allow 
an apprentice to have anything to do.with a prescrip¬ 
tion. He should, however, expect the youth during that 
time to become thoroughly a equainted with the ordinary 
names and terminology of all the drugs and preparations 
in the place. This he would learn by unpacking them, 
checking off’ the invoices, putting them into stock, and 
every day filling up drawers, bottles, jars, etc. Then he 
would put him occasionally to copy a prescription, for 
some time at first always reading it over with him and 
explaining anything unusual in it, but always checking- 
after him. Having in this way become quite fami¬ 
liarized with the various drugs and compounds used in 
dispensing, and feeling quite at home in reading pre¬ 
scriptions, during the last year of his time he may be 
set occasionally to dispense under supervision; and 
when his term is completed, if he be a young man of 
ordinary intelligence, he will be competent to take a 
junior assistant’s situation at least. 
The chairman agreed with Mr. Siebold in ridiculing the 
practice of cramming a young man’s head with a quan¬ 
tity of hard botanical names, in order to qualify him for 
the duties of his calling ; but he thought a student should 
be examined as to his ability to recognize the various 
preparations which ho will have daily to handle. 
