846  Professional  Training,      -       {  Al^eJc0"r19f1harm 
ABSTRACTED  AND  REPRINTED 
ARTICLES 
PROFESSIONAL  TRAINING.* 
Being  the  Address  Delivered  by  Sir  David  Prain,  C.  M.  G.,  C.  I.  E., 
F.  R.  S.,  Etc.,  at  the  Opening  of  the  Eightieth  Session  of  the 
Pharmaceutical  Society's  School  of  Pharmacy,  Bloomsbury 
Square,  London,  W.  C.,  on  October  5. 
Many  learned  bodies  make  arrangements  for  special  meetings 
at  which  anniversary  addresses  are  delivered.  The  custom  is  sup- 
posed to  serve  intellectual  ends.  This  School  follows  a  practice 
which  resembles  that  custom.  But  there  is  here  a  variation  in 
method  which  suggests  another  motive.  The  proceedings  today 
have  so  far  had  a  moral  object;  they  have  shown  the  advantage  of 
the  patience  that  begets  perseverance.  Perhaps  what  remains  may 
be  meant  to  test  your  ability  to  display  for  fifty  minutes  the  patience 
that  leads  to  forbearance. 
If  so,  I  must  warn  you  the  test  may  be  severe,  for  I  have  no 
reason  to  think  myself  qualified  to  deliver  an  Inaugural  Sessional 
Address  before  this  Society  at  the  opening  of  your  School.  My 
excuse  for  venturing  to  speak  in  the  presence  of  the  Society  is  that 
my  work  has  led  me  to  study  the  natural  history  of  some  of  your 
materia,  and  that  I  have  been  much  indebted  to  its  members  for  as- 
sistance while  so  engaged.  My  only  warrant  for  addressing  the 
School  is  that  I  have  been  invited  to  do  so.  The  honour  of  that 
invitation  is  appreciated  the  more  because  it  is  undeserved. 
As  my  official  duties  included  investigation  of  the  sources  of 
certain  drugs  and  actual  production  of  others,  I  am  encouraged  to 
ask  you  to  regard  me  as  one  of  yourselves.  The  memory  of  this 
privilege  increases  my  regret  that  experience  does  not  entitle  me  to 
discuss  problems  belonging  exclusively  to  pharmacy.  But  the  acci- 
dent to  which  I  owe  some  relationship  with  your  calling  has  led  to 
like  intercourse  with  others.  Perhaps  some  of  the  information  so 
acquired  may  interest  you,  especially  as  the  vocation,  outside  my 
own,  with  which  this  intercourse  has  been  most  intimate,  shares 
with  pharmacy  a  common  and  contemporary  origin. 
*Reprinted  from  the  Pharm.  Journ  and  Pharm.,  October,  1921. 
