514  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.  {^mo™a$trm' 
the  fixity  of  physiognomy  at  recent  meetings,  and  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  papers  read  in  the  absence  of  authors  and  not  followed  by  discussion,  as 
evidence  that  the  Conference  is  getting  into  a  rut,  the  possibility  of  this  being 
due  to  the  absence  of  non-technical  subjects  from  the  discussions  was  suggested. 
Reference  was  then  made  to  the  fact  that  the  address  of  the  President  of  the 
American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  which  usually  deals  with  more  general 
topics,  is  handed  over  to  a  committee  to  consider  such  suggestions  as  it  may 
contain  and  formulate,  any  recommendations  respecting  them  that  may  be  de- 
sirable for  report  at  a  subsequent  sitting  of  the  same  meeting  of  the  Association. 
It  was  thus  evidently  implied  that  a  similar  course  might  be  followed  with 
advantage  by  the  British  Conference,  and  the  hint,  as  will  be  seen,  was  taken 
in  respect  to  one  subject.  The  President  then  introduced  his  first  course  of 
"food  for  active  thought." 
The  non-existence  of  pharmacy  for  pharmacists  in  provincial  towns;  the 
rare  glimpses  many  apprentices  get  at  a  prescription  ;  the  slight  distinction  to 
be  observed  in  many  cases  between  the  business  available  to  a  qualified 
chemist  and  druggist  and  that  of  a  drysalter  :  these  evidently  played  the  part 
of  condiments,  but  were  not  intended  as  the  dish  itself.  The  evils  exist,  and 
their  pungency  is  only  too  evident ;  but  the  remedies  for  the  irritation  caused 
by  them  is  not  so  obvious.  Of  course,  the  more  complete  separation  of  medi- 
cine from  pharmacy  suggests  itself;  but  the  time  for  this  seems  yet  far  off.  In 
the  President's  opinion,  legislation  in  this  direction  must  not  be  expected,  and 
he  has  more  hope  in  the  skill  of  the  pharmacist  intensifying  the  distinction 
between  dispensing  in  a  pharmacy  and  dispensing  in  a  surgery,  and  in  the 
improved  education  of  the  medical  practitioner.  But  one  evil  with  which  the 
President  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference  thinks  that  body  might 
grapple  is  what  he  defines  as  "  wholesale  prescribing  for  the  medical  profes- 
sion." The  '*  factory  made"  proprietary  preparations  which  are  perseveringly 
forced  on  the  attention  of  the  medical  profession  he  looks  upon  as  sapping 
the  foundation  of  true  pharmacy,  and  depriving  the  pharmacist  of  the 
legitimate  practice  of  his  calling.  Without,  therefore,  discussing  the  thera- 
peutic value  of  such  preparations,  he  recognizes  the  continual  prescribing  of 
them  by  medical  practitioners  as  indicating  a  want  that  pharmacists  should  lay 
themselves  out  to  supply.  He  would  therefore  make  it  the  business  of  the 
Conference,  as  soon  as  unofficial  preparations  of  a  certain  type  attain  favor  with 
the  profession,  to  construct  formulae  fairly  representing  them,  and  issue  them 
as  unofficial  formulae,  which  might  be  prescribed  by  medical  men,  with  the 
addition  of  the  letters  "  B.P.C"  He  believes  that  medical  men  would  be 
willing,  as  it  would  be  to  their  own  interest,  to  prescribe  preparations  of  a 
known  composition  rather  than  "  nostrums "  of  which  they  know  little  or 
nothing,  whilst  it  would  then  be  within  the  power  of  every  pharmacist  to  pre- 
pare such  preparations  within  his  own  pharmacy. 
Another  dish  of  "  food  for  active  thought "  provided  by  the  President  had 
reference  to  the  still  unsatisfactory  and  inadequate  provision  for  pharmaceu- 
tical education  in  the  provinces.  It  was  pointed  out  that,  notwithstanding  all 
the  labors  of  the  past,  pharmacists  are  still  only  very  incompletely  organized, 
and  an  opinion  was  expressed  that  the  non-existence  of  suitable  provisions  for 
supplying  the  wants  of  pharmaceutical  students  was  not  so  much  due  to  the 
