606 
PUBLIC OPINION ON THE TWO BILLS. 
exclusively dealers in drugs and chemicals, and it was their business to compound the 
medicines which the physician prescribed. Gradually they undertook to prescribe as well 
as to compound, and, at the same time, it b»gan to be felt that some test was necessary 
of the fitness of men who had assumed such important duties. Ultimately, examinations 
were imposed, and the apothecaries became established as the most numerous class of 
practitioners of the healing art. The business of selling drugs and chemicals now de¬ 
volved upon another class of tradesmen, who have in turn encroached upon the province 
of the medical profession, and are likely to encroach upon it still more in proportion as they 
are induced or compelled to acquire some of the knowledge which enables that profession 
to perform its duties. This, however, is a matter which concerns only a fraction of a 
class, while it concerns society that nobody should meddle with medicines who does not 
understand their properties. The objection of the chemists and druggists to being edu¬ 
cated will obtain even less sympathy, but it is to be observed that the objection of some 
of them is not absolutely to examinations, but only to examinations conducted by the 
Pharmaceutical Society, between which and the Society of Chemists and Druggists, 
which is of more recent origin, there prevails an intense jealousy. The demands which the 
existing examinations of the Pharmaceutical Society make in the way of knowledge 
are not large, and the demands which would be made by the examinations which have 
been proposed by the Society of Chemists and Druggists seem to be ridiculously small; 
but whether either of these societies, or some new society, shall be taken to represent 
the general body of chemists and druggists, is a question which concerns the public only 
in this respect, that it is desirable that the conduct of examinations, if there are to be 
any, should be placed in efficient hands. 
“Bills have been brought into the House of Commons by both the rival societies, and 
after some discussion have been referred to a Select Committee, which will endeavour to 
reconcile their conflicting claims. The older society is represented in the House by Sir 
Fitzrov Kelly, and the younger by Sir John Shelley. The Phannaceutical Society was 
incorporated by Royal Charter in 1843, and in the year 1852 it was empowered, by a 
statute called the Pharmacy Act, to conduct examinations and establish registers of ex¬ 
amined persons and members of the society. The word ‘ pharmaceutical ’ is obviously 
a derivative of the Greek word which is sometimes translated ‘ poison ’ and sometimes 
‘ remedy.’ A chemist and druggist is a person who deals in all the substances, mineral 
and vegetable, from which remedies are prepared ; and it would seem that the addition 
of the word ‘pharmaceutical’ adds nothing to the idea which would be conveyed by the 
words ‘chemist and druggist ’ simply. But this word ‘pharmaceutical’ is at any rate a 
long word, and probably it is understood by those who bear it as designating a chemist and 
druggist of superior education and intelligence. 
“The advantages, whatever they may be, of the designation are, by the Act of 1852, 
restricted to persons registered under the Act, and no person can now be registered unless 
he passes an examination, which certainly affords security for the possession of a com¬ 
petent degree of knowledge. It is proposed by Sir F. Kelly’s Bill to provide that shops 
for the compounding of prescriptions shall only be ke^t by registered chemists and 
druggists, and that, except in the case of persons now in business, registration shall only 
be granted on passing the examination of the Pharmaceutical Society. It is certain that 
the Society of Chemists and Druggists will oppose with all its might the proposal to 
place the conduct of examinations in the hands of the rival body ; and it might be pos¬ 
sible and expedient to construct a board which should inspire public confidence at the 
same time that it conciliated the support of chemists and druggists generally. We do 
not, however, think that Sir John Shelley’s proposal to commit the appointment of ex¬ 
aminers to a council to be composed of ‘ twenty-one gentlemen to be annually elected 
from the general body of chemists and druggists,’ would be likely to inspire public con¬ 
fidence : nor do we think that an examination in ; the nature of drugs and medicines in 
general use, with their doses,’ would secure the possession of adequate knowledge. There 
is reason to suspect that, under the authority of the twenty-one ‘gentlemen,’ an easy test 
would be applied in the mildest possible way. At the present time, chemists and drug¬ 
gists not only make up prescriptions, but actually prescribe themselves to a very great 
extent. There seems to be no prospect of their being restrained from prescribing, and, 
therefore, it would be a great public gain to diminish the risk of their committing 
grievous errors. In this view, the proposal of the Pharmaceutical Society to examine in ‘the 
-Latin language, Botany, Materia Medica, and Pharmaceutical Chemistry,’ as the test of 
