PUBLIC OPINION ON THE TWO BILLS. 
609 
“ But the question at once arises, as to how and wherefore this young Society of 
Chemists and Druggists has sprung up into fiscal, if not into scientific competition with 
the earlier Pharmaceutical Society. If it represents, as it assumes to represent, the 
general body of the craft not yet embraced in the first constituted incorporation, whose 
merits are sufficiently proved by its public-spirited and widely-appreciated labours, it 
must obviously include, and so represent also, the bulk of that crass ignorance, to the 
danger of the existence of which the attention of the Secretary of State has been sought 
to be drawn by the General Medical Council. Has it, then, been through a fear of the 
examination that its members, in the mass, have hitherto been held back from offering 
themselves as associates of the older institution? And is it now only by the pressure of the 
times that they are compelled at last to devise some less rigorous test of their own, 
whose leniency and narrowness of range, in contrast with the by no means excessive 
requirements of the Pharmaceutical Society, may doubtless be more agreeable to the 
candidate, if less assuring to the public ? 
“ Such a degree of leniency appears, indeed, to be not indistinctly indicated in the 
thirteenth and fourteenth clauses of their Bill. But the plea of costliness, it is of 
course natural to expect, is one more likely to have been advanced here than that of 
reluctance through consciousness of defective knowledge ; and yet even this, it seems, 
could have been urged with only scanty reason. The comprehensively instructed and 
rigorously tested pharmacien of France, receiving his attestation of competency at Paris, 
pays for it 1200/., or £48 sterling. If he appear before a commission in the depart¬ 
ments, the expense is only 350/., or £14 sterling; but in the latter case he can pursue 
his vocation within only the particular department of country in which he has been 
admitted, while in the former the whole empire is open to him. But the Pharmaceutical 
Society gives its ordinary certificate of competency, available everywhere, for £5. 5$.; 
and its highest attestation, qualifying for election for its membership, costs only twice 
that sum. The regulations for study and for examination in Germany and Sweden are, 
like those of France, lying before us, and certainly none need complain of the rigour of 
even the highest tests hitherto proposed at home, who are familiar with those known to 
be prevalently required abroad. It may be significant to our chemists and druggists, who 
have assumed these titles without previous trial and proof of competency, that, by a law 
still in authority in Germany, all those similarly placed are strictly prohibited from pre¬ 
paring and dispensing medicines ; being particularized to this end along with a motley 
tribe of others, embracing distillers, itinerant quacks, Jews, ^shepherds, executioners, 
honorary doctors, old wives, and charmers. 
“ Manifestly, then, this is a subject on which legislation is demanded, that the public 
may be protected from the possible danger, positive or negative, which arises from its 
present ignorance as to who is, or who is not, properly qualified by skill and knowledge 
for the sale and dispensing of medicines and prescriptions ; and, almost equally mani¬ 
festly, it seems reasonable to be to that body which has hitherto shown the greatest 
energy and zeal for improvement, and upon which, besides, a large measure of authority 
of an approximate description has already been conferred by the State, that the instru¬ 
mentality should be entrusted for carrying the law into effect. All antecedents are in 
favour of the Pharmaceutical Society, while those of the Society of Chemists and 
Druggists are worse than null. Even their projects for the future are such as to involve 
a retrogression when compared with those of the earlier institution. There must 
unquestionably be much individual merit in the ranks of the newer society; and yet it 
is painful to the expert to remark, in the very schedules appended to the Bill proffering 
its claims, such medicines as lettuce, and ipecacuan, and, above all, grains of paradise, 
classed as dangerous drugs, along with nux vomica, opium, and oxalic acid ; while, 
among the active poisons, ergot of rye is placed beside strychnine and atropine, and 
prussic acid is omitted. From the Pharmaceutical Society such defects and incon¬ 
gruities of classification could never have proceeded. It is for the Bill emanating from 
this body, therefore, that upon the whole, success in Parliament seems the more desirable, 
in the best interests of the public. Doubtless, it may undergo some amendments in 
committee; and perhaps among these should be introduced a provision allowing bodies 
of examiners (as, indeed, is already permitted, at least for Scotland, in the Pharmacy 
Act of 1852) to be named and to act in a few of our more populous cities, besides those 
sitting in either capital, in order to promote economy and convenience on behalf of the 
candidates. The obligatory presence of assessors, delegated from the Royal Colleges of 
