The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7177 815-819
8 December 2001

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Letters to the Editor

The Society (5 letters)

Council members’ views

From Mr M. Crane, MRPharmS

Dr G. B. Drummond (PJ, 1 December, p781) hopes that Council members would make their views known on the museum closure and the withdrawal of support for the British Society for the History of Pharmacy.

Owing to the operation of the code of conduct for members of Council (PJ, 18 August, pp244–5), it is doubtful whether Council members would be able to criticise the museum decision and other matters without considering their position as Council members. It also appears that they would be disenfranchised if they raised this matter at an annual general meeting. This leaves the Council elections.

Malcolm Crane
Rye, East Sussex

Riding the tiger

From Mr R. D. Dudley, MRPharmS

The Pharmaceutical Journal has made ever more depressing reading these past few months. For much of that time, the correspondence columns have been its only bright point. They at least assure your readers that each individual among them is not alone in his or her increasing alarm and concern over what is happening to their own profession, the changes in direction and emphasis being forced upon them, the apparent indifference of those holding power in Lambeth to anyone else’s views.

Douglas Simpson’s contribution (PJ, 24 November, p748) best summarises the overall situation.

Transparency, honesty, accountability and other old-fashioned qualities all seem to have gone overboard somewhere. However unfair it may seem to those concerned, there are inevitable strong suspicions of an inner cabal settling issues and doing deals safely away from unaccountable public scrutiny.

In another forum (Private-Rx), we have recently been vouchsafed an explanation for much of this: it relates, apparently, to the Government’s determination to exert greater control over the professions and the Society’s attempt to ameliorate that by willingly taking on much of the the job for the Government: riding the tiger, in fact, except that one remembers Churchill’s dictum to the effect that anyone who does that can never dare to dismount.

I found that explanation and its insistence on stressing only the public’s interests far from convincing. Let the Society engage frankly with the Government by all means, but do not let it delude itself that by adopting the Government’s own markings the Society will somehow deflect it from its course. In ancient times such a compliant and self-effacing body would have been called a satrapy. Nowadays we call it, more bluntly, a puppet.

The Society owes fundamental duties to its members and it does no one any good to deny those duties or lock them away in a cupboard somewhere in an attempt to ignore them. The Council denies or ignores the membership at its peril, but there seems to have been a great deal of that happening these past few years.

So, as Mr Simpson advocated, let us have a formal review of the Society’s finances, a critique of the 1998 management review and a review of the current direction and emphasis of Council policy now, ensuring that each be conducted openly and honestly.

Robert Dudley
Greasby, Wirral

History contributes to professional self-confidence

From Dr M. H. Jepson, FRPharmS

I fully appreciate and share the wide-ranging concerns expressed by your many correspondents about the threats to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s museum. The threats would seem to come from a blinkered perspective and particular attention should be given to the views of those who have taken the trouble to write to the President and to The Journal from outside Britain and from outside the pharmacy profession.

The intention to withdraw museum funding comes ironically at a time when our colleagues in medicine are making increasing endeavours to raise the profile, relevance and significance of the history of medicine. The Faculty of the History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Society of Apothecaries of London has now helped to establish lectureships in the history of medicine in no less than 11 medical schools. It is also hoped that a session on the history of pharmacy will in future be restored to the postgraduate diploma course in the history of medicine of the Society of Apothecaries. The opportunity to visit our Society’s museum would be most pertinent in that context.

The immeasurable importance of the positive PR value of our museum displays should not be underestimated. For example, during the past two years, the Veterinary Products Committee has held an annual dinner at our Society’s headquarters and the members of the committee have been most impressed with the museum artefacts on display and and to learn something of our historical roots and evolution. Our museum curator Caroline Reed graciously went to considerable trouble to arrange a veterinary medicines display cabinet before the dinner this year and it was enormously appreciated.

It is nearly 20 years since Gauno Jensen of the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy, in a paper on the teaching of the history of pharmacy in Denmark, wrote: "History is a science that handles sequences and events, and also the circumstances and personalities marking the sequences and creating the events. In the light of this it becomes meaningful to concern oneself with the past, the present as well as the future as parts of this evolution."

Whether the Council recognises it or not, our historical roots play an important part in contributing to our professional self-confidence and relationships with other professionals. Please, Council, think again from a wider perspective.

Michael Jepson
Birmingham

Ancient and modern

From Mrs R. O. L. Waters, MRPharmS

On behalf of the Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan branch of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, I should like to add my voice to the choir of protest swelling against the proposed reduction in funding for the Society’s museum and the withdrawal of financial support for the British Society for the History of Pharmacy.

The artefacts so carefully displayed and stored are our roots, collected and given with the idea that our history would be preserved.

As an older pharmacist, I enjoy a browse each time I go to Lambeth and indulge in nostalgia. I am sure that other members feel the same and are proud of the progress we have made and continue to make. Members of the public who also come must find our profession fascinating. This all helps to educate them and give them a better understanding of us as guardians of their health.

There is much change around us but it must be for the better. This proposal is a retrograde step. More publicity is needed for the museum and for the history of the Society and pharmacy.

As Pharmacy moves into a New Age, perhaps an illuminated sign on the building at Lambeth would show the public, when passing the anonymous exterior, that we are both the ancient and modern Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Rosemary Waters
Assistant Secretary, Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan Branch

Byelaw amendment procedures

From Mr D. S. Nunn, MRPharmS

In his letter about the curtailment of the museum’s activities, Professor Geoffrey Booth (PJ, 24 November, p746) asks the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council to reconsider its position "before the membership as a whole registers its disapproval by opposing any amendment to the Byelaws". Many of us could be under the impression that we have already registered such disapproval. However, I believe we should look more closely at the words of a Past President. We are aware that any amendent to the Byelaws requires Privy Council approval. But Professor Booth’s letter leaves a number of questions requiring urgent answers.

1. Members have 60 days in which to make their objections. Does the 60 days run from the date of the decision being made by the Council or is it 60 days from the request for an amendment being received by the Privy Council ?

2. Are objections made before the Council’s decision to change a Byelaw considered by the Privy Council?

3. Are letters published in The Pharmaceutical Journal considered by the Privy Council?

4. Are unpublished letters considered by the Privy Council?

5. Are unpublished letters considered by the Society’s Council before it makes a decision?

6. Should members write individually to the Clerk of the Privy Council if the Society’s Council decides to amend the Byelaw? (The Clerk’s address is published in Whitaker’s Almanac.)

7. Since the period for making the decision known and the period for making objections will be over the Christmas and New Year period, will some allowance be made to the 60-day period to recognise this and the non-publication of the PJ?

David S. Nunn
Sutton, Surrey

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