518  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.  {Am,oct^887arm' 
tion,  protection  of  interests,  and  relief  of  distress — have  been  attained.  The 
Act  of  1868,  it  was  pointed  out,  has  rendered  the  examination  a  necessa^ 
condition  of  registration,  and  for  nearly  twenty  years  the  relative  propor- 
tions of  examined  and  unexamined  men  have  been  changing.  As  a  means 
of  fitting  candidates  to  pass  the  qualifying  examination  Mr.  Atkins  evidently 
looks  back  with  regret  to  the  time  when  a  seven  years'  apprenticeship  was 
a  more  important  factor  in  the  production  of  skilled  pharmacists  than  now. 
No  doubt  where  the  master  himself  was  competent  the  old-fashioned  appren- 
ticeship afforded  that  opportunity  for  acquiring  practical  knowledge  which 
is  an  indispensible  preliminary  to  the  proper  application  of  the  theoretical. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  although  competent  pharmacists  may  have 
been  more  ready  to  undertake  the  responsibilities  of  tutor  fifty  years  ago 
than  they  are  now,  such  men  were  not  by  any  means  ubiquitous ;  and  in 
those  days — as  indeed  it  is  still — it  was  not  every  "chemist  and  druggist" 
who  took  an  apprentice — and  his  premium — who  troubled  himself,  or  was 
even  competent  to  teach  pharmacy.  Mr.  Atkins  recognizes  that  education 
continues  to  be  the  question  of  the  hour,  but  he  professes  great  confidence 
in  the  law  of  supply  and  demand ;  this  confidence,  however,  did  not  prevent 
him  from  admitting,  in  the  next  sentence,  that  the  voluntary  principle  has, 
in  this  respect  proved  inadequate.  Much  of  the  present  want  of  success  in 
the  examination  room  is  attributable,  in  Mr.  Atkins'  opinion,  to  the  unsatis- 
factory condition  of  middle-class  education  in  this  country,  an  opinion  in 
which  those  who  know  the  facts  best  will  coincide.  But  notwithstanding 
this  and  other  drawbacks,  he  holds  that  the  hope  of  pharmacists  in  the 
future  lies  in  cultivating  the  scientific  rather  than  the  merely  trading  side 
of  pharmacy,  for  in  this  direction,  from  the  nature  of  things,  competition 
will  be  less  acute,  while  remuneration  for  service  given  will  be  on  a  higher 
scale.  Turning  next  to  the  history  of  the  Conference  it  was  pointed  out  that 
this  body  exists  chiefly  and  preeminently  for  the  prosecution  of  scientific 
research,  and  this  was  defined  as  the  "investigation  and  revelation  of  all  the 
facts  and  phenomena  of  the  universal  nature."  A  big  "  blue-list"  truly,  and 
with  a  share  in  this  wealth  of  subjects  the  Conference  need  never  come  to 
an  end  through  the  want  of  something  to  do.  A  few  paragraphs  were  then 
devoted  specially  to  the  records  of  the  past  twelve  months,  and  an  eloquent 
peroration  brought  the  address  to  a  close.  The  burst  of  applause  that 
greeted  the  speaker  upon  sitting  down  testified  to  the  enjoyment  which  the 
meeting  found  during  the  delivery  of  the  address,  to  which  also  Mr.  Benger 
and  Dr.  Symes  gave  vocal  expression  in  moving  and  seconding  the  vote  of 
thanks  that  was  unanimously  accorded. 
Strophantus. — The  reading  of  papers  then  commenced,  the  first  com- 
munication read  being  a  report  by  Mr.  W.  Elborne,  on  Strophanthus  and 
Strophanthin,  which  was  based  on  a  research  aided  by  a  grant  from  the 
Conference,  and  was  described  as  a  continuation  of  a  pap'er  read  by  the 
author  before  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  in  March  last.  Mr.  Elborne  has 
operated  on  the  greenish-brown  variety  of  the  seed  known  commercially  as 
S.  Kombe.  The  results  obtained  by  him  do  not  altogether  correspond  with 
those  reported  by  other  workers;  for  instance,  the  quantity  of  fixed  oil 
