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PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY, EDINBURGH. 
indefinite term, and instruction in that subject differs widely, according to the views of 
the teacher with respect to the relative value of the matters associated in his lectures. 
Sometimes pharmacy is the prominent f eature in a course of lectures on materia medica, 
sometimes therapeutics, sometimes the physiological action, the modus operandi of me¬ 
dicines is dwelt upon, and sometimes dietetics and hygiene occupy a considerable share 
of the course; but chiefly these lectures treat of the drugs themselves, their origin, and 
their appearance and constitution, together with their actions and uses. Practical 
pharmacy is taught in the shops of Pharmaceutical Chemists and in the laboratories of 
our public dispensaries. I have now enumerated the sources from which the medical 
and pharmaceutical students draw their education, so far as it is common to both ; but 
with this difference, that the medical student very rarely in the present day passes 
through, what to him would be a useless drudgery—a five years’ apprenticeship to prac¬ 
tical pharmacy; he is usually content with the practice of three or six months in a 
shop or at a dispensary. 
The student, then, attends one or more courses of lectures on the following subjects, 
chemistry , botany , and materia medica , and he derives his knowledge of practical phar¬ 
macy from a shop or a dispensary ; and with that course of study, so far as it goes, no one 
can find fault. But does it take the student far enough,—is it sufficient to make him a 
pharmaceutist? I submit that, as a general rule, it is not. We well know that there 
are exceptional cases of self-educated men who have attained the highest positions in 
their several callings, without the aid of lectures at all; but teaching is to be adapted 
to the capacities of ordinary minds. A very celebrated physician, Dr. Jenner, in speak¬ 
ing of his method of teaching the principles and practice of medicine, uses the following 
words :—“ The time is short, the subject is long ; for no general subject or special dis¬ 
ease of pathological significance or of practical importance can be omitted. In such a 
course novelty seems to me out of place,—lengthened arguments in favour of this or that 
view, to occupy time which would be better employed in dogmatic teaching,—and the 
exposition of theories bewildering to the young student, who has so much to learn and 
so little time to acquire it.” Omitting the words “ or special disease of pathological 
significance or ” this passage is equally applicable to chemistry, botany, and materia 
medica. Chemistry is a very long subject, and quite able to occupy the six months of 
systematic, and the three or more of practical teaching without pausing for a prac¬ 
tical application to pharmacy. Botany requires its three months without the interrup¬ 
tion of pharmacy, for its time is very short. 
And now, let me dwell a little longer upon the course of lectures on Materia Medica. 
If pharmacy could be efficiently taught in a course of lectures on Materia Medica, I 
think it will scarcely be denied that Edinburgh would have one of the first schools of 
pharmacy in Europe ; for the names are few indeed that are held in higher reputation 
than than that of the distinguished professor of Materia Medica in our University. But, 
“The time is short, the subject is long.” I take the first volume of Pereira’s 4 Elements of 
Materia Medica ;’ it opens at the name Potassce Nitras, and I find that this substance is 
considered under the following heads :—history, natural history, production, properties, 
characteristics, composition, impurities, physiological effects (a. on vegetables, /3. on ani¬ 
mals generally, y. on man), uses, administration, antidote; and this is not an example from 
which there are officinal preparations to be treated of. It would not be very difficult to 
find out whether, if Materia Medica were attempted to be taught as above, one second 
of time could, even in a six months’ course of lectures, be devoted to each of the heads ; 
and if not in six months, how are the three months’ courses to get over the ground ? 
But it is not worth while to make the calculation. It is practically impossible to teach 
Materia Medica at such length, and therefore something must be left out, more espe¬ 
cially if dietetics and private hygiene form part of the course. Then follows the ques¬ 
tion, what part of the subject is to be curtailed? and the reply has already been given ; 
each teacher enlarges on the part of his subject which he considers of greatest relative 
value to the student. For my own part, I think that a sufficiency of pharmacy may be 
taught with Materia Medica for the medical student, but not for the pharmaceutical 
student, but I think also that the option of a higher pharmaceutical education should 
not be denied to the former when it is provided as a sine qua non for the latter. 
I shall not venture upon any observations with reference to the practical teaching of 
pharmacy in shops and the laboratories of dispensaries, further than this, that I think 
neither the medical nor the pharmaceutical student would be the worse of having even 
