96 
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
the risk of dealing with poisonous or dangerous drugs? We believe—but here 
we express only an individual opinion—that not only may something be done 
to lessen the risk of accidental poisoning, and thus to afford increased security 
to sellers as well as purchasers of dangerous drugs, but that there is great room 
for improvement upon existing arrangements, and that there is an urgent call 
for prompt and energetic action with reference to this subject. We must not 
be understood here to imply that the pharmaceutists or druggists of this country 
are careless or inattentive to the interests of the public or of themselves. There 
is no ground for such an imputation, and probably there is no country in which 
the dispensers of medicine are more conscientious and anxious to fulfil their 
duties in a satisfactory manner than they are in this country; but there is a 
want of concert and of uniformity of action. There are many plans and many 
good plans, each thought by its author to be the best, but may there not, by 
concentration of thought and combined application, be something done towards 
the discovery of a system suitable for general adoption, the best that can be de¬ 
vised, and that which the greatest number of the wisest and most experienced 
men would approve of ? 
Whatever arrangements may be adopted, however, they will but lessen—they 
cannot wholly obviate—the liability to accidents in dealing with poisonous 
drugs. There will still be the reflection that an accidental error may entail 
upon the most careful a ruinous penalty. Are there any means by which this 
painful reflection may be dispelled or relieved ? It may be urged that the num¬ 
ber of accidents such as we refer to is very small. Hundreds of men engaged 
in the same business pass through life without ever experiencing such a misfor¬ 
tune, yet when it does come it is grievous to bear. The reflection of having 
accidentally but innocently caused the death of a fellow-creature, and the loss 
of confidence which such an occurrence may occasion in the public mind, are 
punishments enough to ensure the most careful attention to the arrangements 
required for the public safety. May there not be something done to relieve the 
individual who stands legally responsible for a fatal accident, when the most 
approved precautions have been adopted, from the infliction of an unmerited 
although it may be not an unjust penalty ? 
BBITISH PHAEMACEUTICAL CONFEEENCE. 
The time has just arrived for the first gathering of the British Pharmaceu¬ 
tical Conference ; we say the first gathering, because the meeting at Newcastle 
last year could only be considered as preliminary, and at Bath the true business 
of the Association will commence. 
At Newcastle, the chief subject proposed for consideration was the desirability 
of establishing an annual Conference, and although an evening was devoted to 
science, the organization of the Conference was the one important business of the 
year. We believe it will be proved at Bath that the promoters did not over¬ 
estimate the interest taken in pharmaceutical investigation throughout the 
country ; and we hope by our next month’s report to be satisfied also that there 
is in our body neither lack of talent to conduct such investigation, nor of public 
spirit to publish individual experiences for the general good. 
We learn that there are sufficient papers to be read on this occasion to give 
ample occupation for the time at the disposal of the Conference (of course, care 
must be taken to interfere as little as possible with the engagements of pharma¬ 
ceutists who are also members of the British Association) ; and glancing at the 
questions “suggested” and “accepted,” scarcely one of which fails to"address 
