GENERAL MEETING,

Tuesday, September 15.

The Sessions of Conference opened in the Marischal College, at 9.30 on Tuesday morning, September 15. The President, Mr. Robert Wright, F.C.S., took the chair, and was supported on the platform by Principal Lang (Aberdeen University), Professor McWilliam, Dr. John Gordon, Sir Edward Evans, Mr. N. H. Martin, Mr. W. A. H. Naylor, Mr. George Lunan (Chairman of the North British Branch of the Pharmaceutical Society), Mr. R. A. Robinson (Chairman of the London County Council), Mr. William Giles (Chairman of the Local Executive), Messrs. E. S. Peck and Ed. White (Joint Honorary Secretaries), and Mr. J. F. Tocher.

The PRESIDENT first called on Principal Lang, of Aberdeen University.

Principal LANG said it was his pleasant duty to extend the cordial welcome of the University to members of the Conference. The profession of pharmacy was connected with a science that had made rapid strides. To-day, freed from the extravagances of alchemy, and built up by solid experiments and inductions, it occupied a position of commanding influence and importance. Aberdonians were apt to claim that in every great movement they had had a great part. He was not aware that the University contributed very much towards this naissance or renaissance ; but he recalled at the moment two names-those of the two Gregories-members of a distinguished Aberdeenshire family, father and son, who, especially the son William, a professor in King's College, were both chemists of credit and renown in the end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century. Looking at the list of subjects of research that had been suggested for this Conference, and having regard at the same time to the limited opportunities of many whom he addressed this only he would say, that in scientific training the palm must be given not to the man of vast information, whose knowledge only encumbers him and was undigested and unutilized, but to the one who, animated by the spirit of inquiry, searches into and gets a special glimpse of the nature, the properties, the affinities, the combinations, the changes, by the action of

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affinity of substances-he is the true scientist. The subject of the Conference had special relation to the medical side of chemistry. As one of the great public he must look to the members of the Conference for protection. He saw they had a very varied programme. The subjects were beyond his ken. He did not know exactly what cascara was. He knew what "lethargy was, but did not know what "litharge or some such name was. He could appreciate raisins, but did not understand jalap resins. All these were terms with which the Conference could conjure, and he was sure that before their labours were finished they would have acquired information that would send them back to their scenes of labour wiser, though not sadder, men.

Professor McWILLIAM said that as a member of the professorial staff of the University he wished to associate himself with the words of welcome which the Principal had offered them. To them in the medical faculty the work of the Conference appealed very specially, and touched them, he scarcely required to say, very closely. They knew that the work was of extreme value, and though the Conference was a younger thing than the Pharmaceutical Society-beginning, he believed, in 1864-its recording meetings had been marked by decided progress, and decided advantage to all who had participated in them. He desired to offer his most hearty wishes for the marked success of the meetings of the Conference from its scientific and from its social aspects.

Dr. JOHN GORDON Said he had been called on to offer a welcome to the Conference on behalf of the medical profession of Aberdeen, and he did so most cordially. Being an old pharmacist himself, he thought he had deep down in his inmost core of hearts still a rill of sympathy flowing for pharmacy. When he knew how helpful pharmacy was to the medical profession, he could not shut his eyes to the value of that Conference. It was with very great pleasure that they welcomed them to their northern shores. Medicine leant kindly on the shoulders of pharmacy, and pharmacy kindly looked up to medicine. They as workers were all endeavouring to widen the boundaries of scientific knowledge. He presumed that was the end of their deliberations -the desire to make human suffering less than it was, and to that great goal both medicine and pharmacy were striving forwards quietly, deliberately, surely, and securely. He wished them every speed in their efforts. He wished them good and crowded meetings, and he trusted that their deliberations in

Aberdeen would be beneficial to all concerned. To each and all he bade them welcome, heartily and kindly.

Mr. WILLIAM GILES said it was with very great pleasure that he, on behalf of the Local Committee, offered the delegates a most cordial welcome to Aberdeen to hold their annual sessions of Conference. They in Aberdeen were highly honoured by having that meeting of the British Pharmaceutical Conference amongst them. They had made arrangements which they hoped would be suitable for their deliberations, and they in Aberdeen trusted that the meeting of the Conference would not be behind its predecessors in the large amount of good and useful work in the interests and the advancement of pure pharmacy.

The PRESIDENT said it was a great pleasure to him to acknowledge on behalf of the Conference the most hearty and sincere welcome which had been extended to them that morning. On behalf of the Pharmaceutical Conference he tendered their most hearty and sincere thanks for the welcome which had been extended to them, and more particularly to Principal Lang, speaking as he did on behalf of the University authorities, not merely for the welcome that had been accorded to them, but for the many facilities which they had offered for the proper conduct of the proceedings of the Conference.

Sir EDWARD EVANS, who also acknowledged, said he confessed that the call had come rather suddenly upon him. One of the objects of the Conference was to bring together those engaged in the craft in which they were all more or less interested. They had also with them the ladies who, he believed, attended to look after their husbands, and to see that they attended the meetings of the Conference with due assiduity, and were not enticed away by the other objects of the Conference. It was thirty-eight years since he visited Aberdeen, and he could only congratulate the city on the most extraordinary magnificence of the college in which they were met. It came as a surprise when he emerged from the narrow street to see the grandeur of architecture that was displayed in that noble building. The city to which he belonged-Liverpool-had a very excellent university, and it was growing in strength and numbers, and other great cities were taking the matter up, but premier in beauty must be the noble University in which they held that meeting. He thanked most cordially the Principal for his address, and the authorities for the kind welcome given them.

The PRESIDENT said letters of regret for absence had been received from the following:-Dr. J. Attfield, Messrs. J. Rymer Young (President of the Pharmaceutical Society), T. Tyrer, S. R. Atkins, G. C. Druce, T. H. W. Idris, Payne, J. F. Harrington, Wells, D. Hooper, Wyatt, Quant, W. G. Cross, F. Ransome, H. W. Gadd, G. W. Worfolk, S. Taylor, Symes, P. H. Marsden, and J. C. Umney. Dr. Attfield wrote as follows:

"Persistent neuritis and insomnia will quite prevent me being at the Annual Meeting of the British Pharmaceutical Conference at Aberdeen next month, for I long to be present at one more meeting, and to visit Scotland once more, as well as to hear Mr. Wright, and to see old friends. Best wishes for success."

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.

PHARMACY-ITS RISE, PROVINCE, AND PRESENT CONDITION

It is with feelings of the greatest pleasure, chastened with others of the deepest humility, that I rise to address you this morning. I shall not ask for your indulgence, seeing that my life and my talents-such as they are have been devoted unstintedly to pharmacy since the day, now more than thirty years ago, when, as a youth fresh from school, I entered upon a period of apprenticeship to a former honorary secretary of this Conference-a man who has achieved distinction in more than one walk of life, as scholar, scientist, and man of affairs-I refer to Dr. J. C. Thresh. Little did I think in those days that the mantle of men like Deane, Hanbury, Redwood, Bentley, Brady, Groves, Schacht, Stoddart, Southall, Reynolds, Williams, Greenish, Stephenson, Benger, Stanford, and Martindale, to mention only the departed, would ever fall upon my shoulders. That such a contingency should have happened is a striking testimony to the fact that work done for pharmacy by an obscure person in the provinces does not pass altogether unnoticed or unrecognized by pharmacists generally, and may serve to encourage some other young men who, without encouragement and with limited opportunities for improvement, are willing to devote their lives earnestly to their calling. Permit me a few words by way of preface to my address, and first let me say that, although

when I accepted the presidency of the Conference I had not the remotest idea that the meeting was to be held where it is (Peterborough was then mentioned as the probable place of meeting), nevertheless, had I been free to select the rendezvous for myself, Scotland would have been the country and Aberdeen the city of my choice, for it was in Scotland that I first became entitled to the designation of "pharmacist," and the gentleman who conveyed to me the welcome intelligence of my success in the Major Examination, the late Mr. J. B. Stephenson, was the President of this Conference when it met in Aberdeen twentythree years ago.

Mention of the departed reminds me that the hand of death continues to remove from among us men of influence and high rank in pharmacy. Pharmacists of the type of the late Joseph Ince and John William Bowen are rare, and their departure from our midst will be noted with universal regret. The former was one of the earliest members of this Conference, and acted as Editor of the Year-Book, besides occupying the position of Vice-President from 1867 to 1872. One of the most modest and unassuming of men, he combined classical and literary attainments of a very high type with exceptional practical ability, and the way in which he could "whip up " a faulty emulsion or deal with a refractory pill mass would have been a revelation to those amongst our pharmaceutical candidates who seem to consider it good work to turn out three or four dispensing items in a more or less passable condition in the same number of hours. Of Mr. Bowen it may be truly said that he was one of Nature's gentlemen. Although contributing little to our proceedings he regularly attended the Conference, and filled the post of auditor from the year 1902 down to the time of his death. He was a man of fine artistic tastes, a keen botanist, and withal an able pharmacist. By nature quiet and retiring, he had a kindly and genial disposition, and was a most delightful and entertaining companion. He had both read and travelled widely, and when drawn out his conversation revealed a man of cultured mind, of wide range of knowledge, and remarkable powers of observation and reflection. Coming a little closer to the immediate business in hand, permit me to remind you that it is by no means easy to select a subject for a presidential address, particularly one which shall deal with matters of fundamental interest and importance, seeing that these have naturally occupied the attention of, and have been dealt with very fully and completely by, one or