PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY, EDINBURGH. 
411 
difference between the pharmacy of the United Kingdom and that of Continental Europe 
and America lay rather in the systematic progress of the one and the individual and 
spasmodic efforts of the other, than in the aggregate knowledge of the subject as belong¬ 
ing to the several civilized nations. 
Be that as it may, British pharmacy suffered by comparison, and it was not until, by 
the generous exertions of Jacob Bell and his able coadjutors, a union of the whole 
pharmaceutical strength of the country was effected, resulting in the publication of the 
Pharmaceutical Journal , and the establishment of a School of Pharmacy in London, that 
the pharmaceutists of this country could presume to stretch their hands across the Chan¬ 
nel and the Atlantic to offer an interchange of ideas. 
If before the incorporation of the Pharmaceutical Society, pharmacy struggled to 
maintain a position, and that with a measure of success, how much more rapidly has it 
since advanced ! It cannot be pretended that the wonderful progress of pharmacy during 
the last twenty-four years is entirely due to the Pharmaceutical Society. Were there no 
other factor in the cause, the remarkable development of organic chemistry would alone 
demand a large share of the merit. But to a very considerable extent in its scientific 
and still more in its practical aspect, the present position of pharmacy in this country 
must be attributed to the Pharmaceutical Society. And who I’eaps the benefit? 
First, the Pharmaceutical Chemist himself. Formerly , the druggist offered to the public no 
guarantee of respectability, whether in point of attainments or moral integrity. Some of 
them, we know, were men of science, chemists and druggists in the true sense of the terms, 
dispensers of trustworthy medicines. Of the rest, they professed to be chemists and drug¬ 
gists, but beyond the circle of their personal friends their intrinsic worth was unknown. 
Now, the Pharmaceutical Chemist holds a recognized position independently of his personal 
friends. He is guaranteed by a diploma conferred by the Society after a deliberate ex¬ 
amination of the candidate’s qualifications,—an examination rendered from time to time 
more searching in accordance with the multiplying facilities of education. He has risen 
through the grades of apprentice and associate to the rank of member ; he has acquired 
a general knowledge of the sciences upon which pharmacy is founded, and has made 
himself familiar with the practical details of his art, and the commercial relations of his 
business. He is a man of unblemished reputation, holding a just balance between the 
physician and the public, neither presuming to fulfil the functions of the former, nor 
compromising his good faith by the character of the materials supplied to the latter. 
Second,—The Physician. Taking for granted that the physician depends upon the * 
pharmaceutist, if not in all cases for the dispensing of his prescriptions, at least in all for 
the preparation of his drugs, what an immense advantage accrues to him from whatever 
tends to improve the status and exalt the character of the Pharmaceutical Chemist! Can 
we imagine any disaster more appalling than deaths resulting through the inactivity of 
medicinal agents ? When two trains come into collision, the crash is terrible and the 
cause obvious ; when a gunpowder magazine explodes, devastating a whole district of 
country, the cause and effect are easily put in apposition ; when a flaw in one of the many 
implements of war causes distress in its own instead of destruction in the enemy’s camp, 
the cause is at once referred to the responsible manufacturer. In all these cases the mis¬ 
carriage is patent to everybody, and the cause is seldom very obscure. And how easily 
do such accidents occur! so readily, indeed, that we often find them due to a poor under¬ 
paid wretched creature, who, when discovered, scarcely seems to be worthy of censure. 
But it is different with the preparation and administration of medicines,—a flaw in them 
it is not easy to detect. The constitution of the drug is often so complex, so little indi¬ 
cated by its physical characters, and so difficult to ascertain by chemical appliances, even 
if time and opportunity offered the means, that the physician is fain to hope without 
assurance that his instructions are faithfully carried out. The thousand-and-one agencies 
operating within and around the patient divide the responsibility with the dispenser of 
the prescription. And if the patient die, who shall determine whether the alkaloid, the 
extract, the pill or powder that might have saved him, was worth more than its weight of 
bread-crumb, if so much ? Pharmaceutists know that it is the easiest thing in the world 
to spoil an alkaloid, or an extract, or a powder, or a juice in the preparation. One care¬ 
less act, raising the temperature a little too high, or something as apparently trifling, will 
convert a pan-full of extract into a medicinally inert mass. And where is the physician’s 
guarantee against these accidents, if not in the moral integrity and educational attain¬ 
ments of the pharmaceutist ? 
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