INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
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scientific investigations for which they have became so 
celebrated. In Russia the apothecary is yet more directly 
a government official, and is required to possess qualifications 
of the first order. In France, Pharmacy has also become 
a child of the state, but not in the sense of the German and 
Russian. By an act of 1840 the schools of Pharmacy were 
made branches of the University, and the instruction is 
entirely at the national expense. All students have free 
access to these fountains of knowledge without measure, but 
when application is made for the honours of graduation the 
ordeal is conducted with a severity and closeness far outri- 
valling any similar tribunals on this side of the Atlantic. 
Indeed, the difficulty of obtaining a diploma, (without 
which it is impossible to conduct an establishment) seems 
yet to be increased, as the late Medical Congress of France 
recommend that no student of Pharmacy shall be eligible 
as a candidate for the diploma until he has acquired the 
degree of Doctor of Arts ! a stringency well calculated to 
drive from the ranks all but learned men, but of doubtful 
utility, even in that scientific country. 
English Pharmacy, on the contrary, has just awoke 
to a sense of her dignity, and the complex elements of our 
profession there, are but now assuming that order and consis- 
tency so long characteristic of her continental sisters. The 
whole medical body in England is marked with features not 
elsewhere discernible, being divided into four distinct divi- 
sions : the physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and chemists 
and druggists. Pharmacy is conducted by two of these — 
the apothecary, who also practices medicine, and the drug- 
gist and chemist who has the same characteristics and duties 
as the apothecary of this country. The latter are the more 
numerous, and until recently were entirely without una- 
nimity of action for mutual advantage. As might be ex- 
pected, this body is composed of men of every degree of 
qualification, many of them second to none of their calling in 
the chief requisites, whilst the majority are individuals in 
