(Continued, from December issue)
Doctor’s dispensing is stated by many to be one of the chief if not the chief cause of the ills from which pharmacy is a sufferer, and demands in more or less dignified terms are made that this iniquity shall cease. I make no apology for the existence of this condition of things. Theoretically it is undoubtedly better that dispensing shall be done by the pharmacist, and prescribing by the medical man, but when we pharmacists claim this as a right, and accuse medicine of unjustly usurping our functions, it is well for us to remind ourselves that medical men, although they may not now as frequently as of old take the degree of L. S. A., are the direct and legitimate successors of the old apothecary and that the dispensing of medicine was their legitimate function. So much was this the case that there being a doubt as to whether it was traversed by our own Act of 1868, the short Act of 1869 was passed to preserve the right. Then again it is deep rooted in the habits of the English people to expect the doctor to supply the medicine he has prescribed, and any change can only come about by the slow process of educating the patients and by the exhibition of good will and feeling between medicine and pharmacy. Before it can happen universally there is no doubt that pharmacy must have acquired such a professional standing and education as will enable it to perform its delicate and confidential function with the tact and reserve which is the outcome of prolonged training. The mistake (a very common one) which pharmacy is making, is that it wants the reward before it has made the effort and suitably equipped itself for the service. I exhort the pharmacist of the future to be unremitting in his efforts to raise himself and his calling to a professional status, and then I predict for him that in the natural course the dispensing of medicines will come to him.
Chemist’s prescribing is quite as loudly complained of by the doctors, and when I read some of the letters and comments which appear in the medical journals I am almost tempted to fear that for once medicine is thinking more of its share of the pecuniary reward, than caring for suffering humanity. There is, however, I am sorry to say, a great deal too much prescribing by chemists, and some of it is of a most reprehensible kind. I know a case where a chemist treated a man suffering from rodent ulcer of the face for two years, all the time buoying the man up with the hope that it was getting better, and that he would cure it, until the face was so bad, and the ulcer had spread to such an extent that when it came under the notice of the surgeon nothing could be done for the patient. If that chemist had met the man upon the highway, and robbed him, he would have been liable to imprisonment, but having got the man into his shop he not only robbed him of his money, but he rendered it impossible for the man ever again to be restored to health. For the dishonor which such men bring upon pharmacy, and for the irreparable injury which they inflict upon suffering humanity I should like to give them several years of penal servitude. But there are innumerable small accidents, and little ailments to which humanity is liable, which quite legitimately come within the province of pharmacy to treat, and the pharmacist, if he is wise, is a much safer man to treat these than the clergy and the laity, who are ever ready to prescribe for each other upon any and all occasions. The best and wisest exponents of medicine admit this right on the part of pharmacy, and welcome the service which is rendered by it to sufferers. Pharmacy may make some mistakes, but I know it frequently sends patients to medicine long before they or their friends would think seriously enough of the case to do so.
There should be no rivalries or jealousies between medicine and pharmacy, and the better qualified each of these may be to exercise its own share of the duties devolving upon both, the more will each of them respect the rights and the work of the other.
Before I conclude, one word on the principle upon which remuneration should be based. This is a question of the utmost importance to the English public, as well as to the pharmacists. John Ruskin says, “You do not pay judges large salaries because the same amount of work could not be purchased for a smaller sum, but that you may give them enough to render them superior to the temptation of selling justice.” We cannot err in applying this principle to pharmacy, and deciding that the dispensing chemist must be paid at a rate of remuneration which will enable him to get his living honestly and openly, and render him superior to the temptation to increase his profit and his income by tampering, in ever so small a degree, with the quality of the drugs he uses, and with the health, and may be the lives, of dear ones, and of men important to the community. His remuneration should also enable him to devote sufficient time and care to every detail of his responsible work, and eliminate a very real source of danger which is unavoidable if the haste and the bustle of trade methods are adopted by pharmacy.
The Conference has entered upon the fourth decade of its existence, and, possibly, I should have made a better and wiser choice if I had addressed you upon its past achievements, and its future prospects, but the other matters upon which I have touched seemed to me of greater importance. Let me say, however, briefly, that I think the record of this Conference has been eminently an honorable one, and that it has fulfilled, in a high degree, the functions for which it was called into existence. The story is written in the Year Books, and another phase of it is engraved in the hearts and memories of many of us who have been members almost from the beginning, and who have attended a large number of its meetings. It has added to our knowledge, enlarged our experience, and broadened our intellectual grasp of pharmacy; and last, but not least, it has been the means of bringing together, introducing to each other, and cementing friendships between men who practice a common avocation in districts as wide apart as Inverness and Cornwall. In this latter function the excursion on the last day has played no inconsiderable part. Amongst the critics of the Conference there are some persons who affect to sneer at the excursion as if it were sheer frivolity, and was at variance with the avowed scientific objects of the Conference. I beg to differ, and to claim for the excursion day a very high place in the work of the Conference. It affords the opportunity, as no other arrangement could do so well, for men to meet; and I am quite sure that my own experience is by no means singular when I tell you that many, very many, of the best friends I have in pharmacy were first known to me through the opportunity of one of the Conference excursions; and further I could not exaggerate to you the benefit which I have received from the numerous conversations and informal discussions which always takes place on these days. But it is with societies, as with individuals, they tend to decay, and already, more than once we have the alarm: the Conference is on its last legs! I do not believe it, as I feel sure it fulfils a purpose in the realm of pharmacy which is too important for the Conference to be left to decay, and if we neglect the trust which has been handed down to us, our successors will revive it. I would ask every member of the Conference to get, at least, one other member to join, and I do not think he can use a stronger argument, than that, apart from the opportunity of attending and taking part in this annual scientific gathering of pharmacy, the Year Book, which he will receive, is worth many times the subscription. The Year Book of Pharmacy should find a place on the desk of every chemist and druggist in this land. In it he will find abstracts of papers from a larger number of sources than he can possibly consult for himself, and many of these papers may be of great value to him.
There is no occasion to disguise the fact that we do not get as many or possibly as good papers sent to the Conference as we should like, but when we consider the needs of a weekly press and the number of small societies which absorb in the aggregate a large number of papers, our experience need cause us neither surprise nor alarm. I should like, however, to ask many of those who are doing original work and writing papers in connection with pharmacy to consider whether there is any place so suitable for them to be read as at these meetings.
The authors may feel certain of a larger audience to listen to their papers and a far more capable set of men to discuss them than can be found at any other time or place. In provincial towns the papers are read to a few local men, and the discussion is taken part in by fewer still, and even at the monthly meetings at Bloomsbury Square the discussions have a great tendency to fall into the hands of very few men. However capable these men may be, they cannot possibly have the wide and varied experience of the aggregate of the men who attend this Conference. I would, therefore, venture to urge thoughtful pharmacists to contribute papers to this Conference, and I should like them to come in such numbers that we may be compelled to add another day or two to our meeting.
I mentioned just now the friends whom we have met at these Conference meetings, and before I close I must briefly allude to those we have lost. The first name that will occur to you, I am sure, is that of our genial botanist, the late Professor Bentley, who was president at Nottingham in 1866 and Dundee in 1867. Many of us knew him first and best at Bloomsbury Square as our dear and honored teacher, but to many others the Conference must have been the means of their meeting him, and by all was he respected and beloved. He reached a good ripe age, and of him it might be said—as of many other men who have lived and been true to themselves and their calling—“He has done his work well and earned his rest.” The next, an even greater loss to us as a Conference, because of his younger age and the promise there was in him of greater achievements for pharmacy, is our late treasurer, Mr. R. H. Davies, I, with many others, made his acquaintance through this Conference, and I feel, as I am sure many of you do, that I have lost a personal friend with whom intimacy would have ripened year by year into stronger bonds.