Report ... on the adulteration of drugs. 2nd March 1838.

  • Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report ... on the adulteration of drugs. 2nd March 1838. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the public, which have suffered in this country by the want of an in¬ stitution for regulating and encouraging Pharmacy. Science, in this, as in many of its other departments, has been a deep loser by the ignorance or supineness of our successive governments. In France every Pharmacien, and in Germany every Apotheker, must have undergone a liberal education; and in particular he must have made chemistry a subject of careful study. And what has been the re¬ sult ? Simply, that this profession has supplied in each of these countries a multitude of the most eminent scientific chemists of Europe. In Britain, alas ! we look in vain for a single chemist worthy of the name among those exercising the same profession.* And to what is this lamentable fact to be ascribed, except to the circumstance that in Britain all may, and most do, exercise it without any particular education at all, either in chemistry, or in other liberal arts or sciences ? Germany and France may each number ten chemists of celebrity for one to whom Britain can point. Whence can this arise unless from the almost total want with us of a legalized profession to foster the science ? It cannot be expected that in the present place any details should be entered into as to the mode of constituting a Society of Pharmacy. But certain general principles may be here ad¬ verted to as essential to its success. 1. Its affairs should be en¬ trusted to a Board, whose chief duties should be the examination of candidates for license and the visitation of druggists’ shops. 2. In order to impart at once a due degree of respectability and some scientific character to its constitution and proceedings, it would be right that this board should in the first instance at least consist in part of members from the other branches of the me¬ dical profession. 3. While considerable liberality might at first be allowable in the admission of licentiates, these should eventually consist only of individuals who have undergone a certain course of study and an examination as to their fitness to practise phar¬ macy ; and candidates should be required to produce evidence of possessing a competent knowledge of at least the following branch¬ es,—namely Latin, Chemistry, Botany, Practical Chemistry, Practical Pharmacy, and Materia Medica. 4. Licentiates of the college should be required to abandon medical and surgical prac¬ tice. 5. It is not conceived to be at all necessary or even ad- * I am informed the late Dr Murray commenced life as a retail druggist. But this and any similar instances do not affect the argument.