494  British  Pharmaceutical  Confer -ence.  {Anomober,1i£m' 
BRITISH  PHARMACEUTICAL  CONFERENCE. 
The  fortieth  annual  meeting  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Con- 
ference was  held  in  Bristol,  England,  July  27  to  30,  1903. 
From  the  very  complete  and  exhaustive  reports  of  the  proceed- 
ings, published  in  the  British  pharmaceutical  journals  within  a  few 
days  after  the  last  session,  the  following  abstracts  have  been  made : 
The  proceedings  were  inaugurated  on  Monday  evening,  July  27th, 
by  a  reception  at  the  Royal  Hotel,  held  by  the  Lord  Mayor  of 
Bristol,  Sir  Robert  H.  Simes. 
The  first  session  of  the  Conference  was  convened  on  Tuesday 
morning  in  the  lecture  hall  of  University  College,  the  President, 
Mr.  T.  H.  W.  Idris,  presiding. 
The  Conference  was  welcomed  to  Bristol  by  Prof.  C.  Lloyd 
Morgan,  Principal  of  University  College.  The  address  of  welcome 
was  replied  to  by  the  President  of  the  Conference  and  also  by  Mr. 
S.  R.  Atkins,  President  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  who,  in  the 
course  of  his  remarks,  in  speaking  of  the  educational  work  of  the 
provincial  universities,  said  that  the  society  of  which  he  had  the 
honor  to  be  President  was  entirely  in  sympathy  with  that  work,  and 
desired  more  and  more  to  associate  itself  with  the  work  of  the  uni- 
versities. He  further  stated  that  he  felt  that  the  pharmacists  of  the 
future  would  receive  their  training  in  the  universities  and  would 
become  highly  trained  and  highly  cultured. 
The  address  of  the  President,  Mr.  T.  H.  W.  Idris,  was  devoted  to 
several  interesting  and  timely  topics.  After  some  introductory  re- 
marks on  the  possibilities  of  the  calling  as  a  pharmacist,  particularly 
when,  as  in  several  cases  cited  by  him,  the  pharmacist  took  a  pleasure 
in  his  own  business  and  achieved  success,  the  President  dwelt  at 
some  length  on  two  subjects  more  closely  connected  with  his  own 
avocation.    The  first  of  these  was  on : 
Essential  Oils. — In  this  connection  the  President  called  attention 
to  the  danger  of  considering  these  bodies  as  definite  chemical  com- 
pounds,and  mentioned  a  number  of  cases  where  the  same  oils,  obtained 
under  varying  conditions,  were  markedly  different  in  their  physical 
properties.  The  fact  that  any  one  of  the  constituents  can  be  readily 
determined  should  not  be  seized  on  as  a  method  for  estimating  the 
value  of  an  oil,  the  exceptions,  of  course,  being  oils  in  which  this 
constituent  is  at  the  same  time  the  active  portion.    The  President 
