476 
THE PHARMACY BILL. 
You have said that the Council have adopted a middle course, avoiding both 
extremes. It must be remembered that good as well as evil is often avoided by 
this course. The Society will not gain the numerical strength which the liberal 
policy would have ensured, nor will it effect the desirable reformation which the 
stringent measure was calculated to bring about. It is also to be remembered 
that these extremes are not incompatible. A measure must be liberal towards 
existing interests if it is to be stringent in its future action. Both extremes 
should have been brought into full play, the utmost liberality towards all now 
exercising the calling, and the greatest practicable stringency to prevent the 
future practising of the trade by incompetent persons. Such a proceeding 
would ensure the hearty support of all parties concerned; and if, as has been 
suggested, Government objected to our again admitting unqualified men to the 
register of Pharmaceutical Chemists, that is a point which might be settled in the 
Committee of the House of Commons, leaving us at least the credit of having 
done what we could in a liberal and neighbourly spirit. 
Your correspondent “ O.” proposes to dispose of the registration fees as an 
addition to the Benevolent Fund, with the object of disarming the assertion that 
we desire to appropriate them selfishly. Under present circumstances, I think 
such a course highly desirable, but I would rather have seen our policy so unself¬ 
ish in its character throughout, as would have superseded the necessity of any 
such proposition. 
If I were remodelling the Bill, I would prefer to have it rest upon one simple 
a point, that of requiring all dealers in poisons enumerated in a schedule to pay 
to Government an annual sum for license to deal in such articles, whether the 
tradesman applying for it was a Pharmaceutical Chemist or a grocer : that up to 
certain date licenses should be granted to any one applying and paying for the 
same, and renewable during the life of the holder ; but new licenses not to be 
granted to any one without his producing evidence of having passed an exami¬ 
nation before some legally constituted board. I have been met with the state¬ 
ment that Government would not institute a license except in connection with 
excisable articles. This, however, is a point to be tried, and I see no reason to 
think Government so conservative as to refuse a project of this kind, which 
would be good in its object, easy in practice, and a source of profit to them¬ 
selves. 
Barnard S. Proctor. 
11, Grey Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—The opinion expressed by Mr. Smith at the Liverpool meeting (re¬ 
ported in the Pharm. Journ. for this month), that the chemists and druggists 
are unjustly treated in the new Pharmacy Bill, because it does not propose to 
admit them as members of the Pharmaceutical Society at one sweep, without 
examination or any other condition, appears to be shared by some of our more 
prominent provincial members, who also seem to consider it unwise and unjust, 
thus, as they say, to perpetuate two grades amongst the chemists and druggists ; 
and argue that as many of the present members have not become so by exami¬ 
nation, therefore all who wish to join the Society now, ought likewise to be ad¬ 
mitted without examination. 
I cannot bring myself to agree in this view of the matter, and think it must 
result from a consideration of one side of the question only. I do not say the 
Pharmacy Bill might not be improved, but I trust we shall never see a measur 
to abolish the distinction between pharmaceutists and non-pharmaceutists 
e 
