PHARMACY  IN  PIEDMONT. 
547 
have  so  long  prevented  the  adoption  of  an  ordeal  amongst  the 
best  of  the  progressive  tendencies  of  the  age.  The  law  in 
Piedmont,  however,  differs  in  many  respects  from  that  of  France 
and  Germany.  In  Piedmont  every  large  town,  Genoa,  Nice, 
Ohambery,  and  others,  possess  their  laboratory  and  professors 
chosen  from  amongst  the  most  eminent  chemists  of  the  place, 
and  forming  a  local  institution  holding  the  same  privileges  as  the 
supreme  school  at  Turin,  with  the  exception  that  to  commence 
business  in  the  capitol  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  licentiate  of  its 
school,  by  far  the  most  esteemed  on  account  of  the  extended 
facilities  offered  to  the  student.  Since  the  passing  of  an  act  in 
1853,  it  is  enforced  that  every  one  intended  for  the  calling  of  a 
chemist  must  produce  a  certificate  of  bachelor  from  some  recog- 
nized college,  as  a  guarantee  that  his  private  education  has  not 
been  neglected.  An  apprenticeship  of  five  years  is  required, 
and  if  three  of  these  be  devoted  to  study  and  attendance  at  the 
laboratory  and  lectures,  the  student  may  present  himself  for 
examination  ;  but  it  more  frequently  happens  that  only  the  last 
year  of  apprenticeship  is  at  the  student's  disposal,  after  which 
we  find  him  located  for  the  remaining  two  years  in  some  garret 
of  unknown  altitude  in  the  Via  San  Carlo,  or  the  miserable 
streets  that  surround  the  Tempio  Valdese,  the  abject  type  of  that 
race  of  etudians  who  people  the  Quartier  Latin  in  Paris — youths 
with  long  hair  and  picturesque  threadbare  coats,  poor,  improvi- 
dent, and  ambitious,  struggling  with  every  necessitude  of  fortune, 
and  exposed  to  vice  in  its  most  hideous  form.  But  our  poor 
Sardinian  has  not  the  resources  of  the  disciples  in  Paris,  and 
the  ordeal  through  which  he  has  to  pass  on  the  day  of  examina- 
tion presses  heavily  on  his  mind,  for  it  is  only  by  unwearied 
application  he  will  be  prepared  for  the  presence  of  that  goodly 
host  of  savans  who  sit  in  the  Via  di  Po,  for  the  examinations  are 
prosecuted  with  much  severity.  We  were  present  upon  one 
occasion  when  an  unfortunate  Genoese  came  to  grief  for  not 
knowing  that  madder  contained  alizarin  and  xanthine,  and 
another  was  plucked  for  his  ignorance  of  the  atomic  theory  and 
hydrometrical  equivalents.  Thinking  men  have  long  protested 
against  the  pernicious  effects  produced  by  examinations  so  purely 
theoretical,  and  which  affect  the  best  interests  of  the  future 
man  of  business.    Dr.  Preuss  tells  us  that  the  dragoons  of 
