388 
PHARMACY    IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 
27th,  and  29th  of  April,  and  on  the  7th  and  12th  of  May,  to  ex- 
amine witnesses,  and  on  these  occasions  examined  thirty  witnesses, 
among  whom  were  some  of  the  most  distinguished  physicians, 
surgeons,  apothecaries  and  pharmaceutists  of  Scotland  and  En- 
gland, and  also  Prof.  Kopp,  of  Strasburgh,  and  Dr.  Hamburg,  of 
Stockholm.  The  printed  minutes  of  evidence  taken  by  the  com- 
mittee cover  210  folio  pages,  embracing  more  than  2850  questions 
and  answers.  The  distinguished  character  of  the  parties  concerned, 
the  fair  and  dispassionate  manner  in  which  the  examination  was 
conducted,  and  the  great  variety  of  facts  (statistical  and  others) 
and  opinions  which  it  elicited,  render  this  parliamentary  document 
a  valuable  addition  to  the  historic  literature  of  British  pharmacy. 
The  committee  reported  on  the  21st  of  May,  and  the  report  was  or- 
dered to  be  printed. 
We  give  below  a  few  extracts  from  the  evidence  of  several  of 
the  witnesses : 
The  mass  of  testimony  is  so  great,  and  the  witnesses  so  nume- 
rous, that  in  the  small  space  we  can  allot  to  the  extracts,  but  a  few 
detached  passages  can  be  given,  yet  they  will  be  sufficient  to  ex- 
hibit the  aims  and  spirit  of  the  parties  under  examination  : 
James  Arthur  Wilson,  M.  D.,  Senior  Physician  to  St.  George's  Hospital. 
c;  7.  Do  you  consider  that  it  is  as  necessary  for  the  person  who  compounds 
the  prescription  to  be  educated  in  pharmacy,  as  it  is  for  the  physician  to  be 
educated  in  the  practice  of  medicine,  and  the  surgeon  in  surgery  ? — To  re- 
fuse assent  to  that  proposition  would  be  to  deny  physic  altogether.  I  cannot 
fancy  a  greater  satire  on  physic  than  by  declaring  that  the  means  we  em- 
ploy were  of  little  or  no  consequence. 
<J  8  Then  you  consider  it  may  be  laid  down  as  an  axiom,  that  pharmaceu- 
tical chemists  ought  to  be  examined  by  some  Board  before  they  undertake 
to  compound  the  prescriptions  of  medical  men  ?— Certainly  ;  they  should  be 
proved  competent. 
"  52.  Would  you,  as  a  physician  desirous  that  your  patients  should  be  pro- 
tected from  ignorant  persons  compounding  your  prescriptions,  feel  that  there 
was  a  security  conferred  upon  you  in  that  respect  by  the  power  that  the 
[Pharmuceuticail  Society  is  applying  for  ?  I  should  feel  it  a  very  great  com- 
fort, and  a  very  great  relief  to  my  conscience,  if  I  knew  that  that  Society 
educated  and  examined  men  for  pharmaceutical  chemists.  I  and  every 
physician  must  feel  humiliation,  more  or  less,  in  knowing  that  our  prescrip- 
tions are  left  on  the  table,  and  go  out,  it  may  be,  to  where  the  butler  or  the 
lady's  maid  has  a  friend  around  the  corner. 
"  143.  I  understand  you  to  say  that  you  are  not  in  the  habit  of  recommend- 
ing your  patients  to  take  your  prescriptions  to  any  particular  dispensing 
chemist? —Never. 
u  144.  But  would  you  feel  the  same  delicacy  in  recommending  your  pa- 
tients to  take  a  prescription  to  a  member  of  the  Phamaceutical  Society'?— If 
every  chemist  was  a  member,  [  should  say  i£  take  it  anywhere  )  you  are  safe." 
'•445.  But  if  they  were  not  all  members,  would  you  feel  any  delicacy  in 
