THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
VOL. VI.—No. X.—APRIL 1st, 1865. 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY AND CHEMISTS AND 
DRUGGISTS. 
Two Bills for regulating the qualifications of Chemists and Druggists are- 
now fairly launched in the House of Commons, and the present Session will 
probably witness the settlement of the question which has so long agitated the 
drug trade. Throughout the discussion which has been carried on we have 
always carefully endeavoured to avoid any angry expressions in this Journal, 
and have even abstained from contradicting many erroneous assertions which 
have been made regarding the Pharmaceutical Society, until members of that 
Society charged us almost with a dereliction of duty in neglecting to uphold its 
honour. We must confess that we have thought, and still think, that honour 
too well established to be really imperilled by the attacks to which it has been 
subjected; and we have thought, and still think, that those attacks, although 
put forth officially as coming from a Society which claims to represent a 
majority of our brothers in the trade, did not express the real feeling of those 
gentlemen. Now this suggests to us one of the first and greatest misstatements, 
viz. that the Pharmaceutical Society does not represent the drug trade, either 
in feeling or by its numerical strength. We were, perhaps, content to think our 
proportion small when it was the fashion to speak of the Chemists and Druggists 
as amounting to 35,000, but when the census returns of 1861 came forth to 
the public we found, by a fair computation, that our members, men really and 
truly in business on their own account, amounted to one-third of the Chemists 
and Druggists in business in England and Wales. The register of these men, 
with their addresses, is annually published ; they must be members at the 
time of publishing, not gentlemen who may have been enrolled at some previous 
time and have been satisfied with one year’s connection with the Society, and 
we should like to know whether any other association can produce such a register 
of actual subscribing members who are de facto Chemists and Druggists in busi-. 
ness on their own account? The agents of the u United Society” seem to have 
slightly modified the reading of, u He ivho is not with me is against me f pre¬ 
ferring, as men often do, to apply great truths to their neighbours rather than 
themselves, and translating the passage, “ He who is not with you is with me.' 1 
We dissent from such a conclusion, and have ample evidence on our side in the 
recent memorials, which were sent to the Council, expressing approval of the 
Bill now introduced by Sir Eitzroy Kelly. 
But does the Pharmaceutical Society represent the Chemists and Druggists in 
feeling? All sorts of flattering terms were used regarding its members two 
years ago. They were called the u elite of the trade.” Sometimes w T e hear of 
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