870 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 27, 1872, 
cation, not onty by exacting from tlieir apprentices 
the preliminary test, but also by securing a payment 
in the way of premium that shall be an equivalent 
for the time, labour, and money requisite for giving 
their apprentices such technical instruction as will 
lit them to take honourable and useful positions in 
the calling they have chosen. 
EARLY CLOSING IN THE METROPOLIS. 
It is satisfactory to be able to report that this 
movement, to which we referred three weeks since, 
is steadily progressing. Many laudable attempts in 
the same direction have previously been made, but 
from a want of co-operation between the employers 
and the assistants, with whom they have generally 
originated, but little success has hitherto been 
attained. On this occasion, however, the employers 
have taken the lead, and the results are, so far, very 
gratifying. Already nearly all the chemists in 
Oxford Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly and Conduit 
Street have commenced to “ educate ” the public 
into the habit of sending for their medicines in 
proper time, and with that object they have agreed 
to put up their window-shutters at 8 p.m. and their 
door-shutters at 9 p.m. 
We direct attention once more to this movement, 
the more readily, since, there being no organization, 
—no treasurer, to collect subscriptions, and no 
secretary,—the spontaneous adherence of the 
London pharmaceutists is required, each being 
left to adopt such hours as may suit him best. We 
think we are justified in saying that, on the part 
of the assistants, there will be an effort made to 
prevent the interests of the employers suffering from 
the change. 
THE ANNUAL MEETING AND THE ELECTIONS. 
The extract from the Bye-laws of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society that has appeared for several weeks 
among the official notices on the first page of the 
Journal cover, will have conveyed to most of the 
members a sufficient intimation that all who do not 
before the 1st of May pay the subscription due on the 
1st of January last, will, by such default, become in¬ 
capacitated from taking any part in the ensuing elec¬ 
tions of members of Council and local secretaries, or 
attending the Annual Meeting; indeed, they will 
thereby cease to be members of the Society. We are 
induced specially to call attention to this fact, since 
the meeting of the Council falls this year on the 
1st of May, and consequently there will be no 
opportunity of restoring a lapsed membership before 
the issue of the voting-papers, which can only be 
sent to persons whose names are on the Society’s 
books. 
We also take the opportunity of alluding to the 
election of local secretaries, on account of the want of 
interest and misunderstanding evidently existing in 
some localities. On several occasions it has de¬ 
volved upon the Council to appoint local secre¬ 
taries in the absence of any nomination, while only 
recently a letter has been received from an old 
member asking how local secretaries were nomi¬ 
nated, and wondering why he himself had never had 
a turn of office. To any other persons troubled with 
the same doubts, we would sav that in the course of 
next week a nomination paper will be sent from the 
office to each Member and Associate in business; and 
b 3 r following the plain directions therein laid down, 
the recipient may nominate any member of the. 
Society he may please who lives in the district. Con¬ 
sidering the important services these gentlemen are 
frequently called upon to render to the Society, it is 
to be hoped that each member will do his part in 
keeping the organization hi a state of efficiency. 
The next Evening Meeting of the Pharmaceutical 
Society will be held on Wednesday next, May lst r 
when Mr. Greenish will read a paper on “ Pharmacy" 
in Austria.” The chair will be taken at half-past 
eight precisely. 
A provision has been introduced into the New 
York Pharmacy Bill, which is still before the legis¬ 
lature, that “junior assistants” or “apprentices in. 
pharmacy” shall not be permitted to prepare physi¬ 
cians’ prescriptions until they have become “ gradu¬ 
ates” or “ licentiates” in pharmacy. This would 
seem to necessitate a very prompt acquirement of 
the qualification upon ceasing to be an apprentice, 
and arriving at the dignity of “ graduate.” Another 
point that seems to be objectionable is the constitu¬ 
tion of the examining board, which, as the Bill stood 
at the time of our latest advices, was to consist of 
three graduates of a legally constituted medical 
college and two graduates of a college of Pharmacy. 
Assuming that pharmaceutists know their own busi¬ 
ness best, it is not very clear why there should be- 
a preponderance of medical men amongst their ex¬ 
aminers. 
Some attention has recently been drawn to the^ 
extremely poisonous nature of the sting of Jatrophar 
urens by the circulation of a paragraph describing its; 
effects upon the system, experienced by the ex-curator 
of the Itoyal Gardens, Ivew, who got accidentally 
stung by it soon after the plant was introduced,, 
about fifty years back. The paragraph in question 
is essentially correct, but the facts, as given at 
p. 863, have been obtained from Mr. Smith’s own 
lips. 
