318 
LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
as we can, let us try and share our pleasures with those who too often have to share our 
pains and cares. I do not over-estimate the influence of our Association when I say that 
it must tend to the production of good feeling, and mutual respect and confidence 
among all its members. The members of an intellectual and scientific professional bro¬ 
therhood meet here on equal ground. We have a freemasonry of thought ranging over 
the wonder-teeming worlds of chemistry, botany, materia medica, and therapeutics; our 
passwords are the discoveries we make, the information we gather: one truth elicited, 
one fact wrung from the vast unknown around us, is worth a thousand petty advantages 
and trade jealousies. I trust the day has dawned, and advanced by many hours, when 
we can say that the improvement and advantage of all is the advantage of each. As 
workers side by side in the mine of knowledge and human progress, jet us not look 
askance at one another, but freely afford that cordial help which medical men so gene¬ 
rally understand, and which is but the currency of a common humanity. 
Before I leave these topics, and because the man precedes the chemist, bear with me 
while I touch, and it shall be tenderly, on one or two related subjects. 
The high position which our profession takes in the social scale, by reason of the in¬ 
tellect and attainments necessary for its successful pursuit, commits us to a correspond¬ 
ingly high, conscientious course; the more conscientiously we exercise our vocation, 
the greater our self-respect will be, and the esteem of our fellow-men. 
As was observed by Mr. Harvey at Leeds, in regard to opium-eating, which, accord¬ 
ing to Prof. Taylor’s report, casts some of its odium upon the chemists, “We may some¬ 
times have the opportunity of discouraging the improper use of opiates. The chemist 
can warn an incautious customer of his danger. In other cases he would, I conceive, 
be fully warranted in refusing to sell opiates when it is plain they are used habitually 
and improperly. Among the poor the use of opiate anodynes for their teething children 
may often be quietly but effectually discouraged, and the customer be persuaded to try 
much better and safer means.” 
This is but a sample of the power for human good in our hands. But there are other 
vices as common as the use of opium. To say that quackery and puffing are peculiar 
to chemists, would be very wide of the truth ; indeed, it would be difficult to find a de¬ 
partment of human activity where these pernicious parasites do not fasten their man¬ 
dibles, and weaken, if not altogether destroy, the finer moral feelings. But have not 
the sick, afflicted, ignorant, and poor in all ages been a prey to the unscrupulous, 
from their credulity in matters connected with the mysteries in the healing art ? He 
that gives another ground for false hope, and raises expectations he cannot fulfil, is a 
disgrace to any profession. 
Let me in this connection urge upon my elder brethren in the trade the kindly con¬ 
sideration of the claims of the young, who are training up in our establishments, and 
who will take our places in the next generation. Let us, as much as possible, curtail 
the hours of labour, and cheerfully accord them opportunities of study. And again, 
without apology, let me express my firm conviction of the inviolability of the Sabbath, 
and the lasting obligation of the command, “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it 
holy.” How this is to be done I leave to those individual convictions which it has been 
the object of these remarks to foster, nor would I for a moment bind a yoke upon any. 
To those who are entering the profession of pharmacy, I may be allowed to repeat 
the oft-heard warning, “Yours is the seed-time of life sow sparingly, and such will be 
your harvest. Study at intervals, few and far between, and let your applications to 
the dusty Pharmacopoeia, and dustier laboratory, be like “angels visits,” and it will be 
as easy to predicate your future as to work a rule-of-three sum. Of all things avoid in¬ 
dolence, and cultivate habits of study, and you will soon surprise yourselves with the 
ease and facility with which that labour is performed which has become habitual and 
pleasant. 
The foundation of character of any worth is well said to be in “ a thoughtful mind, 
good principles, and a strong will.” Secure these at all hazards, and they must lead to 
proficiency in any branch of your studies and pursuits. Apprentices and assistants have 
their discouragements; the former too often look upon the all-pervading ubiquitous dust 
as the arch-enemy that devours their time and peace alike, forgetful that though dis¬ 
guised, he is a friend who schools them in lessons of industry, neatness, and perse¬ 
verance, the value of which future life alone can reveal. The latter, we admit, are among 
yol. yi. 2 A 
