BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
145 
contained, and of our desire to move with them hand in hand towards the end we 
mutually have in view. 
Gentlemen, since my youth I have taken, as some of you know, the deepest interest 
in the same objects as those for which the Conference is established, and when 
applied to to associate myself with others in its formation, I could only reply, that 
whatever service I could render them should be cheerfully given. It has pleased you 
to say that this would be best accomplished by my assuming the chair during this 
your first year, and however much I might doubt the wisdom of your judgment, I 
could but bow to the decision. 
So many matters of vital interest to our profession have been mooted during the 
past year, that I could not attempt any succinct review of them without interfering 
with the important duties of the Conference : 1 shall therefore, with your permission, 
confine my remarks to two or three of the most important. Firstly, the national 
Pharmacopoeia, which lias appeared since our last meeting, a matter which some may 
think has already had ample discussion. Secondly, the state of the law with respect 
to accidental poisoning. As the last-named is a subject which will come more fully 
under your notice in the Report of the Committee which will be presented to you, I 
will reserve a portion of what I have to say to the discussion which may then take 
place. 
In the first place, I may mention the publication of the new British Pharmacopoeia, 
a work which, with many merits characteristic of advancement, has been attended with 
much disappointment and dissatisfaction on the part of those most interested in its 
appearance. 
The necessity for one national Pharmacopoeia in place of three distinct works 
issued at irregular intervals, and never simultaneously, by the three Colleges of 
London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, had been for many years a conviction growing and 
forcing itself upon all concerned in the dispensing of medicines. When in 1855 the 
Pharmacopoeia Committee of the Royal College of Physicians of London requested 
the co-operation and assistance of the Pharmaceutical Society in the preparation of a 
new edition of the Pharmacopoeia, the Society’s committee then formed thought it 
highly important that an attempt should be made to induce the three colleges to unite 
and agree to publish their fornmlae in one national undertaking, to be called the Bri¬ 
tish Pharmacopoeia, and accordingly our late lamented friend Jacob Bell, with his 
characteristic energy and determination, made several journeys to Scotland and Ireland, 
for the purpose of conferring with the leading men of those colleges on the subject, 
and after some considerable difficulty obtained something like a general acquiescence 
in the proposal. At the commencement of its labours the committee made out a list 
of all drugs, chemicals, and preparations contained in the Materia Medica of the three 
coheges, and had it printed and issued, with certain questions, to every member of the 
Pharmaceutical Society, with a view to elicit a correct knowledge of what medicines 
were in use, and to what extent, and what medicines were obsolete or nearly so. A 
large mass of evidence was thus obtained from all parts of England and Scotland, on 
the strength of which there was little difficulty in determining what should be retained 
and what omitted. The next step was to go through the preparations, with a view to 
revise where needful, to select the processes best calculated to produce the best results, 
to select the best formulae where there were more than one under the same or similar 
names, and to leave the rest in their integrity, to meet the wishes of prescribes in 
each country ; at the same time it was intended to add formulae for every new prepa¬ 
ration that could be said to be fairly established. The result would have been a very- 
comprehensive work, adapted to all requirements, and interfering but slightly with 
the routine of medical practice or public demands and prejudices, with none, or very 
few, of those violent alterations which have taken us all by surprise in the book now 
before us. 
No doubt those who have had the framing of the British Pharmacopoeia have had 
many and great difficulties to contend with in the reconciling of prejudices ; and in 
doing this, probably to a much greater extent than was desirable or necessary, a series 
of compromises has been made, breaking up many old-established and popular for¬ 
mulae, and omitting others, whereby dispensers and venders of medicines are placed in 
a very false and difficult position, besides being involved in needless expenses to meet 
