688 
A  Dream  of  the  Future 
( Am.  Jour,  Pharm. 
I       Oct.,  1921. 
Association  added  to  the  resolution  the  words  "or  by  medical  men." 
No  other  meeting  of  the  Joint  Committee  was  held,  and  the  work  of 
securing  full  recognition  of  pharmacy  under  the  National  Insurance 
Act  was  carried  on  by  the  Pharmaceutical  Society. 
I  have  recited  all  this  to  point  out  that  the  Conference  did,  in 
1909,  1910,  and  191 1,  take  action  in  the  matter  of  confining,  dispens- 
ing to  pharmacists,  and  to  assert  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  time  is 
ripe  for  another  attempt  to  be  made  to  carry  the  matter  a  step  far- 
ther ;  and  now  that  the  dispensing  for  a  large  class  of  employed  per- 
sons has  been  largely  settled  by  National  Health  Insurance,  to  secure 
that  this  sound  and  salutary  principle  shall  be  applied  all  round.  The 
Pharmaceutical  Society  has  recently  made  a  very  important  move*  in 
this  direction  by  drawing  the  attention  of  the  Government  to  the 
fact  that  in  the  recent  Kidwelly  case  of  poisoning  by  arsenic  the 
medicine  supplied  to  the  patient  was  not  dispensed  by  a  pharma- 
cist. 
PRODUCTION  OF  THE  PHARMACOPCEIA. 
At  the  Jubilee  meeting  in  19 13  you  will  remember  that  Mr.  J. 
C.  Umney,  after  reviewing  the  methods  by  which  the  various  phar- 
macopoeias of  the  world  are  compiled,  advocated  the  appointment  of 
a  Commission,  to  be  called  the  British  Imperial  Pharmacopoeia  Com- 
mission, which  should  consist  of  medical  practitioners,  registered 
pharmacists  of  Great  Britain'  and  Ireland,  the  Professor  of  Pharma- 
ceutics of  the  School  of  Pharmacy,  and  others,  and  that  this  Com- 
mission should  have  the  exclusive  right  of  publishing,  printing,  and 
selling  the  Pharmacopoeia.  This  plan  follows  the  lines  of  the  pro- 
duction and  publication  of  the  pharmacopoeias  of  most  other  coun- 
tries, and  it  is  high  time  that  steps  should  be  taken  to  bring  this 
dream  of  the  future  production  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  nearer 
to  realization,  or  at  least  to  see  that  pharmacists  are  represented  on 
the  Pharmacopoeia  Revision  Committee.  If  this  matter  of  the 
Pharmacopoeia  is  considered  impracticable,  and  nothing  but  a  dream, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  is  a  general  desire  on  the  part  of 
medical  men  and  pharmacists  for  the  early  production  of  another 
edition  of  our  own  British  Pharmaceutical  Codex.  It  is  agreed  on 
all  sides  that  this  is  a  most  valuable  work  and  has  enabled  pharma- 
cists and  medical  men  to  co-operate  very  closely  in  the  prescribing 
and  dispensing  of  useful  combinations  of  drugs  to  the  mutual  ad- 
vantage of  patients,  medical  men,  and  pharmacists. 
