393 
William  Martindale. 
f  A.m.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(.      August,  1902. 
years.  He  was  twice  elected  to  the  presidency  of  that  body  and 
did  much  to  make  its  meetings  a  success.  He  was  also  a  Fellow  of 
the  Chemical  and  Linnean  Societies  and  of  the  Society  of  Arts,  and 
incidentally  found  time  to  devote  to  archeological  studies  and  to 
municipal  affairs,  being  Mayor  of  Winchelsea,  in  which  town  he 
had  a  country  residence,  and  became,  by  virtue  of  this  office,  a 
"  Baron  "  of  the  Cinque  Ports.  His  work  was  recognized  by  the 
Government,  which  appointed  him  a  member  of  the  Committee  of 
the  Privy  Council,  which  was  engaged  in  considering  the  subject  of 
the  regulation  of  the  sale  of  poisons,  and  only  the  day  before  his 
death  he  was  engaged  upon  the  work  of  this  committee. 
Among  British  pharmacists  William  Martindale  was,  as  one  of 
his  colleagues  aptly  said,  "facile  princeps!'  While  his  name  is 
known  to  pharmacists  the  world  over,  probably  few  outside  of  Eng- 
land could  point  out  upon  just  what  his  reputation  was  based.  His 
contributions  to  pharmaceutical  literature  were  by  no  means  volu- 
minous nor  yet  of  high  scientific  import.  His  strength  lay  in  his 
devotion  to  the  art  of  pharmacy  per  se,  and  in  his  eminently  practi- 
cal character.  The  keynote  to  his  reputation  is  perhaps  best  shown 
by  mention  of  his  first  paper  contributed  to  the  Pharmaceutical 
Society  in  1868.  It  was  entitled  "Carbolic  Acid  Plaster,"  and  was 
read  at  a  time  when  Lister  was  attracting  attention  by  his  advocacy 
of  the  antiseptic  treatment  of  wounds.  Thereafter  followed  a  long 
series  of  notes  and  papers  devoted  almost  entirely  to  the  problems 
which  confronted  the  pharmacist  in  his  everyday  work.  Much  of 
this  work  seems  to-day  to  be  of  a  very  simple  character,  but  it  was 
of  immense  value  to  dispensers  at  that  date,  and  many  of  the  meth- 
ods which  are  in  daily  use  at  the  present  time,  while  not  specifically 
identified  with  Mr.  Martindale's  name,  are  nevertheless  the  result  of 
his  painstaking  devotion  to  the  detail  work  of  the  pharmacy.  Mr. 
Martindale  was  fortunate  in  the  location  of  his  store,  being  brought 
into  close  touch  with  the  leading  practitioners  of  Great  Britain,  and 
thus  being  among  the  first  to  meet  and  solve  the  problems  which 
the  advance  in  medical  science  is  constantly  bringing  before  phar- 
macists. Herein  lay  the  secret  of  his  popularity  among  his  con- 
freres in  that  he  was  always  willing  to  impart  to  them  the  results  of 
his  own  experience. 
Much  of  this  is  embodied  in  the  "  Extra  Pharmacopoeia,"  a  work 
which  he  first  published  in  1883  in  conjunction  with  Dr.  Wynn 
