THE BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 53 
has there ever been a shadow of reason for any change of opinion or of practice 
in reference to it. 
The question, how shall we raise pharmacy and benefit the pharmaceutist, 
has from time to time suggested itself to other minds, as it is most natural it 
should. Viewing the subject from its superficial, that is, its trade-union aspect, 
the problem has received a different, and, in our opinion, an erroneous solution. 
It has been reasoned out as follows:—Let us take these hard-working drug¬ 
gists from their separate islands and make them meet together; let us inspire 
them with mutual interests and save them from themselves; let us band them 
in a corporate body, and from henceforth let them be united. 
Whenever this theory has been put in practice it has failed, not from any 
want of honourable and high intention, but simply because it has no element of 
vitality. Ex niliilo nihil Jit. The union thus effected was that of steel-filings 
without the magnet, and the edifice erected had about as much stability as 
the tents forwarded to the Crimea when the Government forgot the pegs. 
But the doomed object of so much benevolence fared but indifferently, for he 
rose next morning a few shillings short in pocket, a sadder though not a wiser 
man. Mere registration is utterly powerless as an elevating agent. These 
remarks are not made with an ulterior or concealed design of exalting any par¬ 
ticular association: their sole object is to demonstrate that to create a true 
society where intellect as well as the amenities of social life have to be repre¬ 
sented, there must be some solid, stimulating incentive; some positive and con¬ 
straining motive, some influence more abiding than the mere flourish of a dinner 
speech, or the canvass of an energetic secretary. 
We believe the adoption of a higher, and, indeed, only effectual plan has been 
productive of unmixed good. It has broken in upon the monotony of the 
druggist’s life; it has raised him in the social scale; it has abundantly widened 
the scope of his operations, while it has entered many a wretched little retail 
and transformed it into a prosperous establishment. A few weeks hence, and 
there will be a visible demonstration of the result of this union between learning, 
literature, and trade. The British Pharmaceutical Conference is a natural 
outcome of the theory. The ancient capital of lace and hosiery is about to 
welcome a set of men, not one of whom despises trade, however much in 
danger of being intellectually above it. There could have been no such Con¬ 
ference had any other plan to raise the druggist been adopted; and its very exis¬ 
tence shows that while he has ceased to be the mere drudge of an onerous 
business, the due cultivation of his intellectual tastes has not utterly crippled 
his resources. 
Learning, in the sense already given, and literature, its inseparable ally, are 
the only talisman that can bind our society together; they are the only suffi¬ 
cient motive for its continuance, and they are its salt. 
THE BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
As the time for the annual gathering of the British Pharmaceutical Confer¬ 
ence draws near, a few words concerning the association itself and the proba¬ 
bilities of the coming meeting may be acceptable to those of our readers who are 
interested in its proceedings. 
The somewhat indefinite scheme of working laid down by the originaUmem- 
bers, proposing but one object, the “Advancement of Pharmacy,” and accept¬ 
ing as a natural consequence the corresponding improvement in the status of all 
connected with it as a profession, yet defining no precise limits to the means 
which were to be employed towards the desired end, further than that an 
