MEETING OF CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS, GLASGOW. 
377 
opportunity of meeting several of their Glasgow brethren at their Annual Pharmaceutical 
Dinner in Edinburgh, and he was sure that they would have a lively and pleasant recol¬ 
lection of the kindness which on these occasions was extended towards them ; he believed 
-that this was the first time that a deputation from Edinburgh had visited their profes¬ 
sional brethren in this city, and he had no doubt they would return gratified with their 
first visit. Mr. Mackay then proceeded to say, that he would not follow Mr. Buott 
through that labyrinth of tirade and abuse he had heaped on the Pharmaceutical Council 
and their endeavours ; he would confine himself to one or two points. He maintained 
that the policy of the Council was one of consistent, continued, and laborious action, 
aud none knew better than he the indefatigable, earnest, and constant attention which 
the gentlemen composing that Council gave to the affairs of the Society; he said the 
names alone of these gentlemen was a sufficient guarantee that honesty of purpose, and 
devotedness to the best interests of the Pharmaceutical Society was and could only be 
their sole object. If there was a name above all others, in connection with the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society, which he honoured and loved, it was that of the late Jacob Bell; 
several years of his professional career had been passed under his superintendence, and 
he was proud to say on all occasions when he visited Edinburgh he made his house his 
home, he had therefore every opportunity of becoming thoroughly acquainted with his 
views; no man, he said, had more decided opinions, or expressed them more firmly on 
the objects of the Pharmaceutical Society, than the late much lamented Jacob Bell; his 
was essentially an unwavering policy, and his oft-repeated assertion was, we have taken 
up a certain stand-point, and it will never do to recede from that. Mr. Mackay went on 
to dwell at considerable length in defence of the policy pursued by the Pharmaceutical 
Council, contending that the Council had in no manner whatever deviated from that 
steady purpose which originated with their founder, and which was their constant aim 
and study to carry out in all its integrity. Mr. Mackay then entered into a comparison 
and criticism of the proposed Bills of the Pharmaceutical and United Societies, and 
while agreeing with the preamble of the latter, he characterized several of its clauses as 
borrowed from the Pharmaceutical, and others, such as clauses six and seven, in reference 
to poisons, he considered quite inoperative, and moreover a matter of impossibility to 
draw a line in this very vexed question, where every medicine might be said to be a 
poison in an overdose ; the clause regarding Lord Campbell’s Act, Mr. Mackay stated, 
was not applicable to Scotland. Mr. Mackay very carefully aud considerately explained 
the various clauses of the Bills as he went along, and at the conclusion claimed special 
favour for the Pharmaceutical Society’s Bill, as being in every way the superior of the 
two. 
Mr. Buott then in general terms addressed the meeting, claiming its support on be¬ 
half of the United Society’s Bill, and as having already received the support of many 
of the principal towns of England, where the Pharmaceutical Bill was considered to be 
essentially unjust, and inadequate to the requirements of the trade. 
At this stage of the proceedings the chairman called on Mr. Thomas D. Moffat, who 
he understood had some opinions to express. 
Mr. Moffat said he would confine his remarks to part of the first clause of the Phar¬ 
maceutical Bill, and to the fourteenth clause; in the first clause we find, he said, “that it 
shall not be lawful for any person to carry on the business of chemist and druggist, in 
the keeping of open shop for the compounding of the prescriptions of duly qualified 
medical practitioners in any part of Great Britain, unless such person shall be a Pharma¬ 
ceutical Chemist, or shall be duly registered as a chemist and druggist under this Act.” 
In the fourteenth clause it is stated, “ that the several fees, payable under and by virtue 
of this Act, shall be paid to the treasurer of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 
for the purposes of the said Society.” Mr. Moffat continued, now if this Bill should be¬ 
come law, we may reasonably expect that a considerable number of chemists in Glasgow 
will take their diploma as Pharmaceutical Chemists ; he said there were about eighty drug 
shops in the Glasgow Directory, and leaving out the sums for registration which these 
eighty druggists would require to pay, and taking no account of assistants at all, he 
would reasonably expect the Society to gain an addition of forty members. Most of his 
friends considered this too low'an estimate, but gianting it for the sake of argument, it would 
give to the Pharmaceutical Society of London the annual amount of £42 sterling. Now 
he was afraid that this w'as the point on which any Bill would receive the greatest oppo¬ 
sition in Scotland,—the sending of the money to London ; he believed that to be the 
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