THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES, 
VOL. YIII.—No. YIL—JANUARY, 1867. 
EIG-HTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN, 
If Zadkiel were a contributor to the ‘ Pharmaceutical Journal,’ we should 
doubtless have a very lucid forecast of the events of 1867 to lay before our 
readers. AVe should be told, perhaps, that about August great excitement might 
arise in the pharmaceutical world, and far north in Great Britain a corusca¬ 
tion of pharma-chemico genius be expected, which would draw many votaries of 
science to the beautiful banks of the Tay ; that probably the spring of the 
new year would be a favourable season for turning the fallow, and putting in 
seed to germinate and fructify for our winter store ; and, it may be, he would 
point mysteriously also to the month of February as a time for great activity in 
the body politic of the House of Pharmacy. 
But Zadkiel is not on our editorial staff, so we must endeavour to read the 
future for ourselves, and, possessing no spirit of divination, to do it only by the 
light of the past and present. Looking, then, to the year vdiich has just de¬ 
parted, we find there has been a lull in the action of our Society in the work 
which they promoted so earnestly in the preceding year. We do not mean to 
imply that the Council has fallen ofi* from its duty, or failed to promote the 
great object commenced by our founders; but for certain reasons, which were 
set forth some months ago in this Journal, 1866 was deemed an unfavourable 
season for intruding pharmaceutical legislation on a pre-occupied House of 
Commons. The subject, though left in abeyance, was not lost sight of, and, to 
keep it in remembrance, a paper of suggestions was deposited with the Home 
Secretary, which to this day we believe occupies a pigeon-hole in the office of his 
successor. The present seems to us a fitting time to exhume that paper. Many 
circumstances incline us to that opinion. First, as regards the Pharmaceutical 
Society. At no period of its existence has it exhibited greater union and vi¬ 
tality, or more certain proof of material prosperity ; candidates for examination 
are more numerous than ever, and the mere fact of the increase in the number 
of those who passed the “Minor” and “Classical” Examinations in 1866 is 
sufficient evidence in itself that, voluntary though it be, the necessity for qua¬ 
lification is becoming a fixed principle in the minds of the rising generation,— 
the men from whom this Society will hereafter be reinforced. As a voluntary 
institution, with nothing but its titles protected by law, the Society might con¬ 
tinue to work steadily, as it has done for the last quarter of a century, attract¬ 
ing to itself the rising talent of the pharmaceutical community, gaining the 
confidence of the medical profession, and through them', as well as by other 
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