388 
Michael  Carteighe. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\     August,  1910. 
Drugs  Act,  1872.  In  1880  and  1882  he  was  an  honorary  General 
Secretary  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference,  of  which  body 
he  was  Vice-President  from  1883  to  1896.  He  was  English  Secre- 
tary of  the  Fifth  International  Pharmaceutical  Congress,  which  was 
held  in  London  in  1881,  and  at  which  he  read  a  paper  on  "  Pharma- 
copoeia Revision,"  discussing  therein  the  small  share  pharmacists 
had  in  the  work.  He  came  back  to  the  Council  of  the  Pharma- 
ceutical Society  in  1881,  and  in  the  following  year  was  elected  Presi- 
dent, an  office  which  he  held  uninterruptedly  for  a  period  of  fourteen 
years. 
That  Mr.  Carteighe  was  well  equipped  for  the  performance  of 
the  duties  which  the  office  of  President  involves  has  already  been 
shown  in  the  foregoing  brief  sketch  of  his  career  up  to  the  time  of 
his  election  as  official  head  of  the  Society.  But,  in  order  that  we 
may  the  better  appreciate  how  well  fitted  he  was  to  guide  the  des- 
tinies of  the  Society,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  the  year  1866, 
when  he  first  became  a  member  of  the  Council.  That  was  at  a  time 
when  the  sale  of  poisons  was  under  no  legal  restraint,  and  at  a  time 
when  negotiations  to  secure  legislation  to  place  the  practice  of  phar- 
macy on  a  regular  basis  began  to  come  within  the  scope  of  practical 
politics.  Carteighe  was  then  a  young  man — he  was,  in  fact,  only 
twenty-five  years  old — and  had  only  just  been  admitted  to  the  coun- 
sels of  the  Society.  Notwithstanding  this,  however,  he  was  the 
confidant  and  adviser  of  Sandford,  the  then  President,  with  whom 
he  was  in  constant  communication  with  reference  to  the  pending 
legislation.  The  important  part  he  played  will  never  be  divulged, 
for  it  was  for  the  most  part  played  behind  the  scenes,  but  this  much 
we  do  know,  that  Mr.  Carteighe  did  his  utmost  to  prevent  the  inser- 
tion in  the  Bill  of  the  words  which  became  known  as  the  Widow's 
Clause.  He  recognized  that  the  position  of  chemists  and  druggists 
would  be  assailable  if  those  words  were  inserted,  so  long  as  they 
remained.  That  his  advice  was  right  we  learnt  to  our  discomfort 
by  the  House  of  Lords  decision  in  1881,  when,  alas,  it  was  too  late 
for  the  knowledge  to  be  of  use.  We  are  betraying  no  confidences 
in  referring  to  these  negotiations,  for  Mr.  Carteighe  himself,  speak- 
ing at  Manchester  in  1895,  pointed  out  that  the  1880  judgment 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the  Pharmacy  Act  of  1868  they  had  in- 
serted a  clause  which  differed  from  every  other  part  of  the  Act.  It 
began  by  asserting  the  necessity — for  the  safety  of  the  public — 
