548 
British  Pharmaceutical  Conference. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Oct.,  1884. 
to  cease  to  assemble  annually  in  the_sarne  town  as  the  British  Association, 
a  reform  that  we  are  inclined  to  think  a  desirable  one  will  be  indefinitely 
delayed. 
The  proceedings  were  commenced  at  half-past  ten  on  Tuesday  morning,  Au- 
gust 12,  in  the  Assembly  Room  of  the  Castle  Hotel.  Apart  from  the  announce- 
ment that  Mr.  Benger  and  Mr.  Ekin,  the  former  after  serving  thirteen  years 
as  one  of  the  Honorary  General  Secretaries  and  the  latter  after  seven  y  ears  as 
Treasurer,  had  expressed  their  intention  not  to  accept  again  the  respective 
offices,  the  principal  feature  in  the  annual  report  was  the  allusion  to  a  vigor- 
ous effort  that  had  been  made  to  extend  the  membership  in  India  and  the 
colonies.  We  think  that  so  far  as  this  attempt  may  prove  to  be  successful 
it  will  be  a  clear  gain  to  the  interests  of  pharmacy,  and  therefore  to  the 
Conference.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  an  accession  of  members 
residing  thousands  of  miles  from  the  ordinary  itinerary  of  the  Conference, 
although  it  may  swell  the  numbers,  is  not  likely  to  furnish  recruits  to  more 
than  a  nominal  extent  to  the  most  characteristic  portion  of  the  operations 
of  the  Association,  the  partly  scientific,  partly  social  meetings,  such  as  the 
one  held  on  the  south  coast  during  the  past  week.  The  Treasurer's  report 
showed  that  onee  more  the  expenditure  had  exceeded  the  receipts.  This, 
in  reply  to  a  question  put  by  Mr.  Bottle,  was  attributed  to  the  expense  of 
distributing  copies  of  the  address  delivered  by  Professor  Attfield  last  year, 
and  to  the  cost  of  a  special  "  whip  "  that  had  been  made  to  secure  new  mem- 
bers at  home  and  abroad.  It  is  not  quite  apparent,  however,  from  the 
accounts  presented,  how  the  whole  of  the  deficit — about  £150— can  have 
been  due  to  the  causes  mentioned,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  statement 
made  by  one  of  the  Honorary  Geueral  Secretaries  we  should  have  inferred 
that  there  had  really  been  an  "  outrunning  of  the  constable  "  to  some  extent. 
However  this  may  be,  we  believe  that  many  of  the  members  will  be  pleased 
to  observe  that  that  item  is  not  likely  to  occur  again  in  the  accounts,  and 
that  the  broadcast  touting  which  had  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  periodical 
event  is  to  be  abandoned  in  favor  of  an  appeal  simply  to  such,  persons  as 
may  pass  the  examination  qualifying  as  a  chemist  and  druggist  each  year. 
The  Address  of  the  President  was  not  conceived  in  a  very  ambitious 
spirit,  and  the  company  who  assembled  to  hear  it  was  not  so  numerous  as 
some  other  meetings  on  similar  occasions  in  previous  years  ;  but  the  delivery 
of  it  was  none  the  less  a  great  success.  The  President  was  not  decoyed  by 
the  example  of  his  predecessor,  on  two  separate  occasions,  into  entering  the 
field  of  pharmaceutical  politics,  which  has  always  been  held  at  meetings  of 
the  Conference  to  be  tabooed  ground  when  any  one  of  less  degree  than  the 
Chairman  has  proposed  to  enter  it.  The  principal  theme  on  the  present 
occasion  was  a  few  points  which  seemed  to  have  a  bearing,  more  or  less 
remote,  upon  those  branches  of  science  with  which  pharmacists,  as  a  body, 
are  particularly  connected.  Starting  with  a  reference  to  the  consequences 
following  upon  the  discovery  of  the  tinctorial  properties  of  some  derivatives 
from  coal  tar,  obtained  during  an  abortive  attempt  to  build  up  quinine,  the 
speaker  illustrated  the  way  in  which  succeeding  investigators,  whilst 
endeavoring  to  wrest  similar  secrets  from  Nature,  have  acquired  knowledge 
concerning  various  natural  compounds  which  pharmacists  have  to  manipu- 
