Am'o2riS6.arm"}     British  Pharmaceutical  Conference. 
513 
BRITISH  PHARMACEUTICAL  CONFERENCE. 
The  23d  annual  meeting  was  inaugurated  on  Monday  evening,  August  30th 
by  a  reception  held  in  the  Grand  Hotel,  Colmore  Row,  Birmingham,  which 
proved  to  be  a  very  pleasant  and  useful  innovation,  as  it  furnished  an  oppor- 
tunity for  many  introductions  and  renewals  of  acquaintance  at  the  earliest 
stage  of  the  meeting.   The  sittings  were  held  in  the  handsome  Chemical  Lec- 
ture Theatre  of  the  Mason  Science  College,  and  the  proceedings  commenced  at 
ten  o'clock  on  Tuesday  morning,  August  31st,  with  a  hearty  greeting  from  Mr. 
Thomas  Barclay,  as  the  chairman  of  the  local  committee,  which  was  supple- 
mented by  a  graceful  welcome  from  Professor  Tilden,  who  expressed  the 
pleasure  with  which  he  met  so  many  of  his  old  pharmaceutical  friends  in  that 
theatre.   The  list  of  delegates,  which  was  a  fairly  long  one,  having  been  read, 
Dr.  Thresh,  one  of  the  honorary  secretaries,  read  the  annual  report.  This 
document  commenced  by  referring  to  the  steps  that  had  been  taken  to  carry 
out  the  announcement  made  at  Aberdeen  as  to  the  compilation  of  a  general 
index.   The  members  were  reminded  that  the  index  had  been  compiled  and 
published  and  it  was  stated  that  the  nominal  price  at  which  it  has  been  issued 
will  result  in  an  encroachment  on  the  cash  balance.    It  next  mentioned  the 
satisfactory  increase  in  the  number  of  members  in  India  and  the  colonies, 
which  was  attributed  to  the  efforts  of  the  various  secretaries.   The  report 
alluded  to  the  death  since  the  last  meeting  of  Mr.  William  Southall,  who  filled 
the  office  of  President  of  the  Conference  in  1880.    Finally,  it  was  mentioned 
with  regret  that  Mr.  Sidney  Plowman,  who  for  five  years  has  so  energetically 
served  the  Conference  as  one  of  its. honorary  secretaries,  had  expressed  his  wish 
to  retire  from  office  after  the  present  meeting.   The  address  of  the  President, 
the  delivery  of  which  followed  the  adoption  of  the  report,  was  somewhat  am- 
bitious in  its  tone,  but  for  this  it  had  the  justification  that  two  at  least  of  the 
topics  discussed  are  of  vital  interest  to  the  future  of  pharmacy,  in  Great  Britain. 
In  fact,  in  his  choice  of  subjects  the  President  seems  to  have  been  influenced 
by  a  profound  dissatisfaction  concerning  the  present  condition  of  pharmacists 
in  this  island  as  well  as — tell  it  not  in  Gath— considerable  doubt  as  to  whether 
the  Conference  has  done,  and  is  doing,  all  of  which  it  is  capable  to  ameliorate 
this  condition.   Only  a  few  brief  references  were  made  to  the  past,  avowedly 
on  the  ground  that  it  presented  so  little  that  was  cheering  and  so  much  that 
was  discouraging.    These  references,  however,  included  an  expression  of 
opinion  that  experience  with  the  new  Pharmacopoeia  during  the  last  twelve 
months  has  shown  that  it  does  not  represent  the  advance  made  by  pharmacy 
since  the  issue  of  the  previous  edition;  a  suggestion  that  pharmacists  do  not  as 
a  body  do  all  that  might  be  done  towards  improving  pharmacopceial  processes, 
or  working  out  the  history  of  little-known  drugs  before  they  get  into  the  hands 
of  the  "mystery  mongers,"  followed  by  a  hope  that  the  projected  research 
laboratory  may  remove  that  reproach ;  and  an  allusion  to  the  benefits  resulting 
from  international  gatherings,  a  propos  of  the  International  Pharmaceutical 
Congress  in  Brussels  last  autumn.  The  President  then  proceeded  to  develop  the 
main  theme  of  his  address,  pausing  by  the  way  to  utter,  a  little  cynically,  his 
reluctance  to  "  throw  a  stone  into  so  placid  a  pool  of  self-esteem,"  the  subject 
being  the  necessity  that  the  Conference  should,  if  it  desires  to  maintain  its 
raison  d'etre,  assume  more  active  duties  than  it  has  hitherto  done.   Calling  in 
33 
