PRESENT STATE OF PHARMACY IN ENGLAND. 
9 
of a school of Pharmacy. It was designed to unite the 
chemists and druggists of England and Wales by one com- 
mon and powerful bond, which should cause them to 
act in unison in repelling the attacks from without, by the 
advocates of medical reform; whilst they should by every 
laudable means remove the stigma that had been cast upon 
them by other branches of the medical profession — that 
they were ignorant and illy-fitted for the responsible busi- 
ness of Pharmacy. 
" At the time that Mr. Hawes undertook to set the pro- 
fession in order, (says Mr. Bell,) he was supported and 
urged forward by the advocates of a system, liberal on the 
one hand, and restrictive on the other. According to the 
plan laid down, a new order of medical men was to be 
raised up on the basis of the general practitioner or Eng- 
lish apothecary, and although Mr. Hawes did not contem- 
plate the annihilation of the existing medical institutions, 
his measures were calculated indirectly to undermine their 
influence, and reduce their power by creating another chan- 
nel, open to " all, by which professional rank and honor 
might be attained." 
"Whilst the profession was to be thus thrown open and 
purged from what are termed its "corruptions it was 
also to be protected by means of stringent prohibitions, 
against unqualified practitioners, enforced by heavy penal- 
ties. These measures were chiefly levelled against the 
druggists, and were designed, among other objects, to settle 
the knotty question respecting 'counter practice,' which 
has been a subject of dispute from the time of the apothe- 
caries of the sixteenth century to the present day. It was 
not supposed that druggists could make any effectual re- 
sistance on the occasion, as it was proverbial that they were 
a disunited body, and that they had no representative go- 
vernment or other means of concentrating their influence. 
On the other hand, Mr. Hawes and his party were backed 
by a large and influential association, (the Apothecaries,) 
