678 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [February 17 ,1872. 
Carmpttoe, 
*** A r o 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 
for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION. 
Sir,—I have no desire to enter into a personal controversy 
with Professor Siebold, so shall decline to encounter that not 
very difficult task of defending my former letter against his 
remarks in your issue of to-day. 
My only reasons for calling attention to the said lecture 
was the belief therein expressed that many of the statements 
were calculated to mislead students; and, further, that those 
opinions were not shared in by pharmaceutists generally. 
I am quite willing to submit to Mr. S.’s charges of incon¬ 
sistency if I have succeeded in placing before your readers 
any remarks which may induce them to carefully read the 
lecture for themselves, and having done so, I am sure that 
many of my opinions will be endorsed by them. 
Benjamin Keen. 
Uppingham, February 3rd, 1872. 
Sir,—That “a Manchester Pharmacist” should attack a 
“ person” instead of a principle, in your columns, is, to say 
the least, discourteous. The doctrine of the Manchester 
School teaches,* that for the physical, and consequently for 
the mental, welfare of mankind, it is necessary that the ab¬ 
solute and exclusive right of every one to that which he pro¬ 
duces with the means at his own disposal (such as his money 
or his knowledge), should be recognized and secured to him 
by law; and that beyond this, law has nothing whatever to 
do with the matter. So that an advanced test of education, 
and restrictive pharmaceutical legislation, would naturally be 
opposed by these doctrinaires as pernicious and protective 
innovations. 
A' paradox contains more truth than logic; and as your 
Manchester and Dover correspondents are not paradogma- 
tists, I will develope my meaning in a few words. 
It more than one-half of the candidates for the Major and 
Minor examinations (in the list from which I quoted) failed 
to pass, I endeavoured to show that it mainly resulted from 
their faulty early education. Obtain a better-educated class 
through a severer Preliminary examination before appren¬ 
ticeship ; and, cceteris paribus, fewer would fail in the 
Major and Minor. And I still persist in claiming a higher 
arithmetical test with the elements of algebra and mathema¬ 
tics as necessary for the proper comprehension of the chemical 
theories. In stating these views I am happy to know that I 
am echoing the sentiments of many of my 'confreres. That 
my plea for higher education should have called forth sple¬ 
netic personal abuse and misplaced satire instead of the dig- 
nity ot argument, is no fault of mine. 1 have lived much 
abroad, where pharmacists are received in society as profes¬ 
sional gentlemen, on account of their educational prestige, 
and my sincere hope and aim is to see the like in England, 
and hear more of professional studies and less of trade-marks, 
drudgery and shop. Ernest J. T. Agnew. 
R-S.—To satisfy my hypercritical commentator, I must add 
that where the castor-oil bean is cultivated, the plant is called 
Palma Christi, and has as much reason to be named castor- 
oil palm as Cochlearia officinalis has to be called scurvy.grass. 
Sir, Is the British pharmacist a shopkeeper pur et 
simple, or a member of a learned profession ? 
These questions have to be answered before we can arrive 
at any rational conclusions as to the amount of education the 
public has a right to expect in those who practise pharmacy. 
Probably few pharmacists will hesitate long ere they answer 
perhaps more than half indignant that the query had been 
thought needful—that they are undoubtedly of the “ pro¬ 
fessional class.” Nor, so far as dispensing chemists are con¬ 
cerned, can, I think, this be greatly denied. At any rate, 
whether the full concession of professional standing be granted 
or not, this much must be conceded, that the man to whom is 
entrusted the dispensing of a physician’s prescription should 
* See Lord Hobart’s article in the current number of the 
Fortnightly Tie view. 
be on a higher level than the retailer of tapes and cotton, or 
pepper and mustard. It is not worth while, in the present 
instance, to consider the standing of the mere retailer of 
drugs. That the dispensing chemist is at the same time a shop¬ 
keeper is not to be questioned. So likewise are many sur¬ 
geons ; so, in a sense, are all professional men if the selling 
a thing constitute the shopkeeper. But there is something 
beyond the mere selling of drugs expected of the “ chemist,” 1 
and that something, comprised in the term dispensing, con¬ 
stitutes to my mind the pharmacist ’3 just claim to be re¬ 
garded as a member of a profession, and not a mere shopkeeper. 
This something is outside the competency to judge of the 
purity of the articles sold, which is expected of ordinary 
shopkeepers, and includes a knowledge of their properties. 
It is rightly expected that the butcher should be able to 
judge the quality of his beef, but it is nowhere or no when ex¬ 
pected that he should be familiar with its dietetic value. It 
is rightly expected that the grocer should be able roughly to 
pronounce upon the genuineness of the tea he sells, but no- 
one expects him to be competent to say with what other things- 
it may be taken or with what it may not be taken, nor to 
be able to say what quantity can be safely administered at one¬ 
time. Still less is it expected that lie should revise the- 
orders of his customers, and correct them if he think more- 
is ordered, or in improper proportions, than is correct or 
safe. Now, of the dispensing chemist all these things aro 
rightly expected. He should be able to detect adulterations, 
should be a judge of the quality of the articles he sells. He- 
must be familiar with their properties, with their action upon 
the system and upon each other; and he must know in what 
proportions they maybe safely administered, and possess suf¬ 
ficient self-con lidence to enable him to point out any error lie- 
may detect in the prescriptions of those he is daily taught are 
above him in social position, and immeasurably above him in 
attainments and knowledge of the very subject at issue. All 
these things the dispensing chemist has expected of him; ancl 
he tacitly claims to be able to meet these expectations when 
he styles himself “ dispensing chemist.” 
Such being the case, the question of how little education 
can we escape with appears to me sadly out of place. Phar¬ 
macy will never occupy its true position amongst the profes¬ 
sions until pharmacists learn to respect their profession too- 
much to permit them to seek to lower the standard of their 
professional education; they must, au contraire, continue to 
raise that standard in accordance with the progressive inarch- 
of general education and culture. Hence it appears to me- 
that Mr. Siebold’s lecturef is singularly ill-advised, and that 
pharmacists generally should speak with no uncertain sound 
on the subject. 
The prevailing tendency of thought amongst pharmacists- 
appears to lie in the direction, that nothing more should be- 
required of candidates for admission on the register than a 
bare proficiency in the usual routine of the daily work of the 
profession. And this is, at first sight, such a common-sense 
view of the subject, that the prevalence of this opinion is not 
surprising. But it is forgotten that the duties of the dis¬ 
pensing chemist are such that there is, properly speaking, no- 
daily routine. “ Each day brings its own work ” in the che¬ 
mist’s shop in a peculiarly true sense, and requires something- 
more than a familiarity with the usual (or average) rodtine. 
For example, I lately saw a prescription which had been the- 
round of several dispensing chemists in a large town, none 
of whom could dispense it properly, although they had all 
apparently tried a different method with it. It at last came 
into the hands of the very chemist who had had the least 
business experience, but who happened to have a wider cul¬ 
ture and a fair general scientific knowledge. His first at¬ 
tempt to dispense the prescription failed. He pondered the 
matter, saw the cause of his failure, tried afresh, succeeded, 
and thus secured a good and profitable customer. Now this- 
was a case—one probably out of hundreds—where “ outside ” 
knowledge proved of service. 
The sore point with Mr. Siebold appears to be botany, of 
which he does not see the “ pharmaceutical value.” Nor, at 
first sight, is it easy to be seen, excepting in the case of those- 
who are likely to enter upon the collection of indigenous 
herbs. But botany has a direct pharmaceutical value, as ap¬ 
pears in the following extract from a paper read at the Glas¬ 
gow Chemists and Druggists’ Association, by Mr. M‘Millan. 
He says, “ I have here on the table a sample of ‘ Conii 
f Phabm. Joubn., January, 1872. 
