338 
LEEDS chemists’ ASSOCIATION. 
beings. We need to be reminded of these things the more, as our avocations are neces¬ 
sarily so absorbing as to require almost our undivided attention. 
With regard to trade extension and the mixed character of the business carried on by 
many druggists, our fellow-associate Mr. Gissing gives rather a melancholy picture, 
which I am afraid is but too true. Men must live, and capital must be made to produce 
some interest; and if, in certain places, our own legitimate trade will not do these things, 
something else must be tried. So long as this is done honestly, who has any right to 
find fault ? Some look with longing eyes to the Legislature for a remedy for this state 
of things ; and seeing the general practitioners largely engaged in pharmacy they would 
fain have a law passed prohibiting surgeons from meddling with this branch. I must 
confess that I think that such a prohibition would not be just to the surgeons or to the 
public; that Parliament would not pass such a law, and that if passed, it would be evaded 
so as to be inoperative. I dare say that we shall all agree that if surgeons in English 
towns would follow the example of some of their Scotch brethren, and leave pharmacy to 
pharmaceutists, they would consult their own convenience and dignity, and the benefit of 
their patients. And we may go further, and assert that in proportion as medical practi¬ 
tioners partake less of the spirit of traders, and more of that of professional men, in pro¬ 
portion as they become highly educated, aud practise medicine not as an empirical art, 
but as a branch of philosophy, in the same proportion will they be ready, whenever cir¬ 
cumstances allow, to abandon the custom of making up their own prescriptions. But I 
would not go further still, and say that we must try to get a law passed forcing them to 
do that which they will do spontaneously if we will only wait for the operation of in¬ 
fluences which are already silently, but surely and gradually tending to the same result. 
Mr. Ince, recollecting that Pandora’s box had Hope at the bottom, closes his paper 
with a bright prospect for the future. How pleasant, after depicting the ills that the 
present practice of pharmacy is heir to, to reveal at last the one panacea that is to cure 
them all. “I have spoken,” says he, “of a great deliverance. I believe our sole hope is 
in a stringent Act of Parliament, on the one basis of compulsory examination.” 
I am sure it affords me no pleasure to feel any doubts about the soundness of the 
foundation on which Mr. Ince’s “ sole hope ” rests ; especially as this hope is shared in 
by many—perhaps by nearly all—of our body throughout the kingdom. But it cannot 
be unprofitable to look a little more closely at the grounds on which so many expect such 
glorious results to follow from compulsory examinations. We have hitherto heard, chiefly 
one side of this question, and many have taken it for granted as an axiom that every 
future druggist should be compelled to pass through an examination, the only question 
with them being by whom the examination should be conducted. Now I think we want 
the previous question further discussing before w^e need to ask who are to be the exa¬ 
miners, and we should carefully look at the negative argument before we come to the 
afiirmative conclusion. If I enter a little further into this question, therefore, it will not 
be that I would presume to be the champion of a minority, or an opponent of Mr. Ince; 
but I would rather perform the more humble office of bringing before you some views 
of this question which, as far as I can see, have been hitherto very much overlooked. 
Let us, then, examine what Mr. Ince and his correspondent Mr. Orridge have to say 
in favour of compulsory examinations. 
Mr. Orridge, in a “ calm and lucid statement,” addressed to Mr. Ince, reasons thus:— 
The Apothecaries Act of 1815, W'hich prohibited any one from practising as an apothe¬ 
cary who had not passed the examination of the Company, raised the apothecaries from 
a low position to a high and prosperous one, aud enabled them to charge “ in one line ” 
of their bill for professional services, rather than in many lines for medicines supplied. 
In like manner, an Act of Paj'liament making the examination of chemists compulsory 
before they were allowed to compound prescriptions, would raise their position, and 
enable them to get a better price for their skilled labour than they do at present. 
Allow me to remind you that the reasoning here adopted by Mr. Orridge is that of 
analogy—Si sort of reasoning upon which we are often obliged to act, but which is not 
always the most conclusive, and never demonstrative. “It is founded,” says Leechman, 
“ on some similitude existing between things that are compared together. We are thus 
induced to believe,” he continues, “ that similar causes will produce similar effects, aud, 
from our knowledge of certain properties in objects which we know, are led to infer 
that similar properties exist in other objects which are unknown, or but imperfectly dis¬ 
covered.” There are at least two sources of fallacy to which this mode of reasoning is 
