460 
Colleges  and  Associations. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I  September,  1894. 
The  Conference  was  welcomed  by  Dr.  Caird,  Master  of  Balliol  College, 
Walter  Gray,  Esq.,  Mayor  of  Oxford,  and  Sir  Henry  Ackland,  Bart,  K.C.B. 
(Regius  Professor  of  Medicine  of  the  University  of  Oxford).  The  last  speaker 
considered  that  the  whole  question  of  medical  science,  and  along  with  it  the 
question  of  scientific  pharmacy,  was  undergoing  a  change  as  well  as  a  course  of 
progress  and  enlargement  which  the  world  had  never  seen  before.  It  depended 
upon  various  causes — it  depended  upon  the  progress  of  biology,  on  the  broad 
views  taken  of  the  whole  nature  of  life  on  our  planet,  and  especially  upon  the 
fact  that  attention  was  being  given  throughout  the  whole  world,  not  really  so 
much  to  the  treatment  of  disease  as  to  the  prevention  of  it. 
The  President,  Mr.  N.  H.  Martin,  selected  "  Medicine  and  Pharmacy  "  as  the 
subject  of  his  address.  This  he  considered  sufficiently  broad  to  allow  him  to 
speak  as  candidly  of  British  pharmacists  and  pharmacy  as  he  did  some  months 
ago,  in  another  place,  of  their  American  congeners. 
In  answer  to  the  question  whether  the  condition  of  pharmacy  in  its  own 
special  domain  is  satisfactory  at  the  present  time,  he  was  compelled  to  speak 
in  the  negative  ;  but,  he  argued,  this  is  in  a  very  great  measure  due  to  certain 
peculiar  directions  in  which  the  trade  in  medicines  has  developed  in  recent 
years,  and  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  is  most  certainly  in  no  degree  to  blame 
for  the  present  condition  of  affairs.  It  is  rather  registered  chemists  and  drug- 
gists who  are  to  blame,  for  endorsing  the  falsehoods  of  advertising  quacks  and 
helping  to  create  on  the  part  of  the  public  an  unhealthy  demand  for  proprie- 
tary medicines.  The  manner  in  which  medical  practitioners  are  inveigled  into 
recommending  and  prescribing  quack  remedies  was  also  forcibly  declaimed 
against. 
It  is  impossible,  it  was  pointed  out,  in  the  practice  of  pharmacy,  to  grasp 
commercial  advantages  and  yet  retain  the  rewards  properly  belonging  to  pro- 
fessional services,  and  pharmacy  must  shortly  make  its  choice  between  the 
two.  The  very  essence  of  trade  is  that  it  is  capable  of  indefinite  expansion, 
and  there  is  no  limit  to  which  a  tradesman  may  sell  his  goods  through  the 
agency  of  others.  But  indefinite  expansion  is  impossible  in  the  fulfilment  of 
the  proper  functions  of  pharmacy,  which  stamp  it  as  a  profession  rather  than  a 
trade,  requiring  the  members  to  receive  a  special  education  and  give  evidence 
before  a  legally  constituted  body  that  they  have  been  so  educated.  The  service 
rendered  also  is  personal  and  direct. 
Pharmacy  as  a  trade  is  a  failure,  and  rightly  so,  as  nothing  can  justify  the 
use  of  professional  knowledge  to  excite  men's  fears  and  play  upon  human 
credulity  for  gain. 
Regarding  the  steps  which  should  be  taken  to  enable  pharmacy  to  realize  its 
privilege  and  accept  its  responsibilities  as  a  profession,  it  was  recommended  that 
the  entrance  examination  should  be  made  a  more  stringent  test  of  intellectual 
powers  and  school  training.  Algebra,  geometry,  history,  geography,  and  a 
modern  language  should  be  included  in  the  syllabus,  and  an  extended  knowl- 
edge of  Latin  should  be  required.  This  entrance  examination  should  not  be 
passed  before  the  age  of  seventeen,  and  should  be  followed  by  a  three  years' 
actual  apprenticeship.  An  enforced  curriculum  covering  two  years  should 
,  then  precede  the  qualifying  examination,  lasting  a  week  or  more,  and  success 
in  this  should  carry  with  it  the  qualification  and  title  of  pharmacist. 
