290 
PHAEMACEUTICAL ETHICS. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir ,—Apropos to the question of education in Mr. J. Ince’s excellent essay 
on Pharmaceutical Ethics, permit me to mention a circumstance recently under 
my own observation. 
On the same day I had two assistants offer me their services, and both ac¬ 
knowledged that they had never been taught Latin in any way A Was it 
consistent for any one to take these young men as apprentices ? 
With such a state of things. Sir, I fear that, until the examination of 
apprentices is made compulsory by law, the social elevation of chemists as a 
body will be very minute. 
I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 
G. II. Wright. 
7, Poultry, October 3, 1866. 
THE TEUE POSITION OE PHAEMACY. 
to the editor of the pharmaceutical journal. 
Sir,—Will you allow me to make a few remarks upon the subject which is 
now filling your pages, and which is so deeply interesting to all chemists,—the 
position and prospects of pharmacy ? My only apology for intruding on your 
space is the interest I feel in the subject. 
I have read, with much pleasure, your report of the proceedings of the Not¬ 
tingham Conference ; the papers read and the discussion which followed, are re¬ 
plete with interest and instruction; but, in reading them, the thought arose in 
my mind whether some of our friends were not aiming a little too high, and 
trying to make that a profession which after all has too much in common with 
trade to become one. 
We are called tradesmen, and we take our position in society as such ; now, 
whatever may be the future of pharmacy, this is its position at present, and while 
we make continuous efforts to rise, we shall, I think, do well not to blink this fact. 
Still, while we are without doubt a trade, there is no reason as Mr. Giles says, 
that we should be a mere trade. The practice of pharmacy affords ample scope 
for the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and not only so, but its efficient and 
proper exercise require it. 
That pharmacy is not a mere trade, is evident from the fact that while a 
grocer’s or draper’s customer is as capable of judging of the quality of the article 
he buys as is the seller himself, and therefore pays him beyond the cost of the 
article itself, for outlay of capital and labour only,—the same person purchasing 
drugs or medicine, is more or less dependent for their genuineness upon the 
knowledge, skill, and conscientiousness of the chemist, and, of course, in addi¬ 
tion to mere cost, pays for these “etliics” also. Now this difference it is that 
(although it does not make us a profession) distinguishes us from other mere 
trades and puts us upon a higher level; and that we are so inferior, and, as a 
body, so uninfluential, is I think greatly our own fault in not educating our¬ 
selves to occupy fitly that higher position properly our own. 
To be practical, it is a well-known fact that many persons residing in the 
country send habitually to the medical man for any drug the quality of which 
is an object, paying, in most cases, a higher price for it. Why is this ? It is 
because they have confidence in one man and not in the other, and they go to 
the one who understands and is in a position to guarantee the purity of the 
article which he supplies. 
