1046 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[June 29, 1872. 
put on his clean linen over that, whether much or 
little, which he happened at the time to be wearing. 
I believe Sir Humphry has been known to increase 
the amount in this way to as many as five shirts and 
five pairs of stockings ! We are told that on the 
veiy rare occasions when he divested himself of his 
superfluous garments, he caused infinite perplexity 
to his less intimate friends, who were quite at a loss 
to account for his rapid transition from a state of 
•corpulency to that of tenuity. But Sir Humphry 
Davy is not the only example of this kind I could 
mention. I am myself acquainted with a rapidly 
"rising candidate in the field of Natural History who 
is so absorbed in his studies that respect for personal 
neatness and adornment of the most ordinary cha¬ 
racter is quite out of the question. The consequence 
may be better imagined than described. Men of 
•science and others should endeavour to avoid any¬ 
thing like an approach to so great a mistake as 
this. 
Again. Study may be pursued to the total dis¬ 
organization of those mental phenomena which are 
called into play by its adoption. We deeply regret 
That such men as Buckland and Miller, in their 
earnest desire to unite Science with Faith, conjointly 
with the intense, though sad, conflict which the task 
apparently engendered, should furnish examples of 
this possible contingency. But so it is. Their noble, 
though, perhaps, mistaken efforts were past endu¬ 
rance; and now, far away in “that undiscovered 
country, from whose bourne no traveller returns,” 
these earnest seekers after knowledge and goodness 
&est from their labours, and enjoy true liberty in ac¬ 
quaintance with that great and imperishable secret 
which awaits us all. 
If we examine the constitution of the human mind, 
it will require no great perceptive ability to com¬ 
prehend that a constant and excessive call upon its 
various faculties individually or collectively must 
d;end to overthrow that due balance which is nor¬ 
mally the sum of all its parts. Hence we are not 
•surprised that, where imagination becomes an ele¬ 
ment of study in a highly organized capacity, the 
result should occasionally culminate in so sad an 
alternative. Stern and practical, indeed, must that 
man be who can look unmoved on a mind over¬ 
thrown ! The caution conveyed by such a possibi¬ 
lity is too obvious to need comment. 
So far, then, my remarks have partaken of a gene¬ 
ral character; but I must not overlook that special 
aspect of my subject which, as will be rightly sup¬ 
posed, comes forcibly home to my mind. The grand 
purpose of our lives,—we who are known as che¬ 
mists, druggists, j)harmaceutists, medicine-men or 
apothecaries, as the case may be,—is pharmacy. 
Probably no sentiment or thought calculated to urge 
on the student of pharmacy to the attainment of the 
highest point offered by his profession has been omitted 
in the pages of the Pharmaceutical Journal. With 
much eloquence and force has the subject of study 
been laid before the reader, and with still greater 
•earnestness of purpose has its many advantages 
been dwelt upon and explained. We must so direct 
our thoughts that whilst we ascend to the height re¬ 
quired, we shall detract nothing from our merits as 
men engaged in the daily routine of trade and com¬ 
merce. The stern, practical realities of life must 
not be swallowed up by the grandeur of profitless 
and mistaken ambition. There is the counter before 
us, and to that counter, clay by day, with steady and 
unwearying perseverance, must our efforts be directed. 
There is nothing between this and absolute failure 
in the hard, dry details of pharmacy. # Yet even 
here knowledge acquired by study will not be un¬ 
available as auxiliary to the end in view. Time will 
come, no doubt, when the title indicating “ the right 
man in the right place ” will have a certain comfort¬ 
able relation to the pocket which will admit of no 
denial. In this direction most certainly is the stream 
rapidly tending, and well will it be with us if we 
follow it closely and persistently whithersoever it 
goes. 
I have already pointed out the possibility of dis¬ 
aster from too great a call upon those faculties 
which have for their physical basis the brain and its 
immediate connections; but to ourselves, as pharma¬ 
ceutists, a result such as this could scarcely happen 
from a too earnest endeavour to gain distinction or 
fame. The possible mischief to us does not lie here. 
On the contrary, the sciences of chemistry, botany, 
pharmacy and materia meclica, so far as the latter 
may with accuracy be considered sciences, are all 
excellent studies, and healthful and invigorating to 
the mind; but there is some danger lest, in the 
spiritless monotony of our too quiet “ pharmacies,” 
(all exceptions duly granted), the highly wrought 
and over-sensitive brain may stumble awkwardly 
against the miseries of ennui. f To battle with the 
hour during successful moments is easy; but to 
wrestle with Time under a heavy sense of his ever¬ 
lasting presence, and in the face, perhaps, of unto¬ 
ward circumstances, is not devoid of risk to the 
imaginative and thoughtful mind. Out and away, 
we may “ kill time,” so to speak, without much harm 
accruing; but there, “ where we have garnered up 
our hearts,” too often old Time, like the clock on 
the stairs, seemetli to say incessantly, “ For ever!— 
Never ! — Never! — For ever! ” ;[ This possible 
source of mischief has not been overlooked by our 
ablest pharmaceutical thinker, who bravely and sig¬ 
nificantly addresses his fellow-workers as follows :— 
“ Cultivate a cheerful frame of thought; do not 
scent mistakes which may never happen, nor antici¬ 
pate imaginary dangers. Hope, next to knowledge, 
* It is to be hoped, however, that this adherence to the 
counter will never render us amenable to the literary, but 
withal harmless, castigations of ‘ London Society.’ “ I do not 
know what it is,” says a writer in that gorgeously conducted 
publication,—“ the national habit of drinking beer, perhaps, 
or the climate, or the Metropolitan Railway, or something 
eminently British,—but Marshall and Snellgrove’s young 
men, and id genus omne, in their hours of relaxation, are 
‘ uncertain, coy,’ and utterly devoid of abandon. They are 
stiff, wooden, impassible. They cannot shake off the shop. 
‘What’s the next article?’ is for ever trembling on their 
tongues, and when in repose, they turn their feet out, as 
though that eternal counter was still in front of them.” 
f Sir Benjamin Brodie, in his ‘Autobiography,’ speaks of 
“the degradation of mind which ennui necessarily pro¬ 
duces.” 
4 The misery that may be occasioned by a recognition of 
the presence of time is well set forth by the presumed happi¬ 
ness of the opposite condition, when “ time shall be no more.” 
“You might heap together words,” says an eminent divine, 
“ and tax the imagination to the utmost in order to delineate 
the glories of the New Jerusalem, with its streets of gold 
and its walls of precious stones, and its palaces, lit not by sun 
or moon; and you might outstrip all that poets have ever 
done in your picture of the unutterable calm of the rest of 
the redeemed, when congregated around the glassy sea; but 
in no way could you so magnify their happiness, in no way 
so exalt my conception of their unparalleled joy, as by telling 
me that they are insensible to the lapse of time.” 
