44°  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.    {As^ptJembef,hi9oa  * 
THE  BRITISH  PHARMACEUTICAL  CONFERENCE. 
The  thirty-seventh  annual  meeting  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical 
Conference  was  held  during  the  week  of  July  24, 1900.  The  meeting 
was  held  in  London,  and  this  is  the  second  time  in  the  history  of 
the  Conference  that  the  meeting  was  held  in  this,  one  of  the  great 
cities  of  the  world.  The  President  of  the  Conference  gave  a 
very  practical  address,  and  one  that  is  deserving  the  considera- 
tion of  pharmacists  of  not  only  Great  Britain,  but  of  the  United 
States  as  well.  The  account  of  the  Conference  which  we  give  the 
readers  of  this  Journal  has  been  taken  from  the  Pharmaceutical 
Journal,  July  28,  1900,  which  contains  the  President's  address,  and 
most  of  the  papers  in  full. 
Presidential  Address. 
By  E.  M.  Holmes. 
After  dwelling  briefly  upon  the  progress  of  pharmacy  during  the 
century,  Mr.  Holmes  says,  regarding  the  subject  of  counter  pre- 
scribing: 
"It  has  been  stated  by  medical  men  that  what  is  known  as 
counter  prescribing  by  pharmacists  is  one  of  the  causes  why  dis- 
pensing is  not  entirely  handed  over  to  the  latter  by  the  medical 
profession.  The  subject  is  rfo  doubt  surrounded  with  practical 
difficulties,  but  probably  these  are  not  insuperable.  There  is  no 
law  to  prevent  a  man,  however  ignorant  he  may  be,  from  pre- 
scribing remedies  for  himself,  his  friends,  or  his  household,  and  it 
has  been  stated  on  high  medical  authority  that  it  would  not  be 
objectionable  for  persons  to  apply  at  a  pharmacy  *  for  simple  reme- 
dies for  toothache,  muscular  pain,  or  trifling  dyspeptic  ailments, 
provided  the  person  seeking  relief  knew  what  he  was  about,  and 
was  not  deceived  by  the  assumption  of  an  authority,  or  of  titles,  on 
the  part  of  the  chemist,  and  provided  that  such  relief  was  merely 
to  be  regarded  as  first  aid,  or  a  temporary  expedient  for  a  definite 
complaint  stated  by  the  patient.  But  this  is  a  very  different  state 
of  things  from  what  is  known  as  a  prescribing  business,  in  which 
the  chemist  goes  beyond  his  province  in  diagnosing  disease  and 
supplying  remedies  for  it.  In  such  business  the  straightforward 
plan  would  be  for  the  proprietor  to  qualify  as  a  medical  practitioner, 
or  to  arrange  with  a  properly  qualified  man  to  see  his  clients.  The 
