ON THE ADULTERATION OF DRUGS. 
139 
regulating and encouraging Pharmacy. Science, in this, as 
in many of its other departments, has been a deep loser by the 
ignorance or supineness of our successive governments. In 
France every pharmacien, and in Germany every apotheker, 
must have undergone a liberal education; and in particular he 
must have made chemistry a subject of careful study. And what 
has been the result? Simply, that this profession has supplied 
in each of these countries a multitude of the most eminent 
scientific chemists of Europe. In Britain, alas! we look in 
vain for a single chemist worthy of the name among those ex- 
ercising the same profession.* And to what is this lamentable 
fact to be ascribed, except to the circumstance that in Britain 
all may, and most do, exercise it without any particular edu- 
cation at all, either in chemistry, or in other liberal arts or 
sciences? Germany and France may each number ten che- 
mists of celebrity for one to whom Britain can point. Whence 
can this arise unless from the almost total want with us of a 
legalized profession to foster the science? 
It cannot be expected that in the present place any details 
should be entered into as to the mode of constituting a Society 
of Pharmacy. But certain general principles may be here 
adverted to as essential to its success. 1. Its affairs should 
be entrusted to a Board, whose chief duties should be the ex- 
amination of candidates for license and the visitation of drug- 
gists' shops. 2. In order to impart at once a due degree of 
respectability and some scientific character to its constitution 
and proceedings, it would be right that this Board should, in 
the first instance at least, consist in part of members from the 
other branches of the medical profession. 3. While consider- 
able liberality might at first be allowable in the admission of 
licentiates, these should eventually consist only of individuals 
who have undergone a certain course of study, and an exami- 
nation as to their fitness to practise pharmacy; and candidates 
should be required to produce evidence of possessing a com- 
*I am informed the late Dr. Murray commenced life as a retail drug- 
gist. But this and any similar instances do not affect the argument. 
