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BllITISH PHAKMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
the trade. I allude to those disreputable and most unprofitable compacts,, 
where, under the guise of a percentage, or an accommodated tariff, or any other 
occult arrangement, the pharmaceutist dispenses for the surgeon, and is robbed 
of the profit of his labour. 
From my very heart I reprobate a system, the discovery of which is always 
a source of anxiety to the surgeon, from its unprofessional nature, and which, 
as far as the pharmaceutist is concerned, is the introduction of an unhealthy 
and underhanded trade; miserably unremunerative, and too often a late-hour 
slavery, where there is not even self-respect with which to gild the fetters. 
There can be no true companionship where there is no esteem; deduct the 
element of mutual respect and honourable relationship between the medical 
profession, and pharmacy is at an end. But whose the fault ? For should the 
pharmaceutist fail to be the helper and fit companion of the physician, he has 
not rightly understood either the dignity of his calling or its moral responsibi¬ 
lity. At first, this dread feeling of responsibility hangs over him like the 
sword of Damocles, but with the fear comes also a sense of honour, the very 
inspiration of all that is high and excellent. 
The true pharmaceutist will always be the helper, for it is his to know the 
mechanism of the healing art, to develop new remedial agencies, to enter upon 
untried regions of experiment, to utilize the dreams of theory, and to bid 
science wait on the wants of daily life. In all these things the true physician 
will gladly be instructed, nor will he refuse advice nor withhold his friendship 
from one who, though working in a humbler sphere, is yet able to enlarge the 
basis as well as to guide the exercise of his professional skill. 
So between these two men grows up a thorough sensible understanding, 
founded on personal advantage, deepened by common sympathy, and cemented 
by mutual respect. Let us rejoice that this is the bare statement of every-day 
experience, and not mere elegant writing. 
Long may the profession and the trade work in perfect harmony together— 
their ethics are the same. 
Section IV. 
ETHICS OF PUBLIC LIFE. 
The Behaviour of the Pharmaceutist as a Meiiiber of his Society. 
Fortunately for most of us we have at least one interest other than the business 
in which we are engaged, and that is the society to which we .may happen to 
belong. A society is a great foe to rust, to mental and moral stagnation. I 
hardly think the man acts wisely who never leaves his counter, nor do I fall into 
the popular error of considering him an eminently practical business man. Why 
should he be immured for thirty years behind a section of mahogany only to 
have hie jacet sculptured upon his tombstone when he is finally immured else¬ 
where ? 
The very organization of a society, with its wider and more generous im¬ 
pulses, changes the grey colour of his life, while it presents solid pecuniary advan¬ 
tages quite irrespective of more ethical considerations. As a member of society, 
he is bound when convenient to give at least some personal attendance ; nor 
can he pass through a year without encountering some subject on which he 
can furnish useful information. He is not bound to divulge any mere busi¬ 
ness secret, on which subject I need say nothing, as I have elsewhere said so 
much: still less on its part is any society justified in dragging into pseudo- 
learned discussion trade technicalities of manufacture which were determined 
more by the exigencies of the till than the formulae of the Pharmacopoeia. But 
besides the personal gathering together of the members (in itself an unspeakable 
advantage), there are various scientific journals, some pharmaceutical, some 
