BATH chemists’ association. 
343 
with the unjust and ungenerous remark, that (quoting the speaker’s own words) “ as a 
rule, the class of small shops were conducted by men who took no pride in the quality 
of the drugs they dispensed, and, therefore, were nothing more or less than mere huck¬ 
sters or chapmen.” The speaker, I think, must have forgotten that public convenience 
required small establishments as well as large ones; and if, before giving utterance to 
such sentiments, he had made inquiries, he would have found that undue competition 
was as much the vice of the large as the small. As an instance of this, I recollect a 
large and wealthy concern in the north, conducted, too, by a founder of the Pharmaceu¬ 
tical Society, where three qualities of sweet nitre were kept, in order to meet the re¬ 
quirements of its connection. And on pushing his inquiries still further, he would have 
found that the existence of so many small shops could be accounted for by the illiberality 
and want of consideration on the part of large proprietors in days gone by. If gentlemen 
employing assistants in those days had been more considerate of the feelings and re¬ 
quirements of those assistants, had paid them more liberally out of their own handsome 
profits, and had conceded them more time for the furtherance of their studies, and the 
cultivation of those social amenities which are as necessary for the assistant as the 
principal, many of the men now conducting small concerns would still have remained 
as assistants. But I will dismiss this unpleasant part of the subject, by giving the 
speaker the cordial sympathy of a small proprietor in support of the resolution moved 
by him, to the effect, “ That this meeting considers that the practice of pharmacy re¬ 
quires to be limited to fully-qualified persons, and that it is necessary, to attain this 
result, that an appropriate examination should be enforced by legislative authority.” 
This resolution, which every lover of his profession cannot do otherwise than endorse, 
brings us into the region of pharmaceutical politics, and at once the question is started. 
How shall this be accomplished ? 
It is an easy thing to propose an abstract resolution, but it is a difficult and an arduous 
task to attempt to so conciliate all the classes of persons interested in this matter, as to 
give effect to that resolution ; still I think it possible to accomplish even that, and if. 
Gentlemen, in addressing you somewhat at length on this subject, I should appear too 
prolix and tedious, I will plead, as an apology, its great importance. 
The interests involved are of a very diverse nature, and unless we approach the sub¬ 
ject with a free and full determination to make mutual concessions in order to secure a 
successful result, all our deliberations will prove of no avail. I have given much atten¬ 
tion to this question, and it appears to me that there are six different classes of persons 
whose interests have to be considered and, if possible, conciliated. Firstly, there are the 
original founders of the Pharmaceutical Society, the men who have stood by it through 
evil as well as good report; the men to whom is due the credit of all the efforts which 
have been made to advance the interests of pharmacy as a profession, to whom we owe 
the origin of the Pharmaceutical Conference, and, as a sequence to the others, our very 
meeting to-night. Secondly, there are those men who, to their honour, have passed the 
examinations of the Society, and who, in order to attain that status, must have sacrificed 
a considerable amount both of time and money, and whose material interests we cannot 
blame the Council for jealously guarding. Thirdly, there are the men who were eligible 
to be registered as Pharmaceutical Chemists in 1852, but who, from some cause or other, 
—some, perhaps, from not appreciating the advantages offered, others from inadvertency, 
—neglected to avail themselves of that opportunity. Fourthly, there are those who have 
entered business on their own account since that period. Fifthly, the present race of 
assistants. And, sixthly, apprentices. 
The great difficulty to overcome re, how to reconcile the various conflicting interests 
without sacrificing the principle for which the Pharmaceutical Society, and for which, 
indeed, we all contend, viz. an examination as to fitness. The Pharmaceutical Society 
has already made certain concessions, by offering the privilege of a limited examination 
to men who have been in business five years, or who are upwards of thirty years of age. 
I for one, as belonging to class three, accept that concession ;■ and I think that many 
others similarly situated will, for the sake of furthering the interests which we all have 
at heart, sink all feelings of jealousy, and give in their adhesion to a re-considered pro¬ 
gramme of the Society; but the greatest amount of the opposition at present is from 
men of this class, who, I think, in some instances, take a mistaken view of the matter, 
and imagine that directly the examination is made compulsory, and that the diploma of 
the Society becomes of bond fide value, that their material interests will be sacrificed, 
