The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7179 p911-936
22-29 December 2001

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Christmas miscellany summary

A brief look back at 1901

End of an era ...

Queen Victoria lived only 22 days into the 20th century. On 26 January 1901, The Journal, in a black bordered editorial entitled "The Death of the Queen", expressed the sorrow of the Pharmaceutical Society, "the existence of which has been almost contemporaneous with Her Majesty's reign, the grant of the Society's Charter of Incorporation having been one of the Queen's earlier acts of sovereignty after her accession to the throne". So ended the great Victorian era.

... and beginning of a new era

George Newsholme, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in 1901

A hundred years ago, there were none of our recently encountered problems in deciding when the century, and in our case the millennium, actually began. The Journal of 12 January 1901 reported the year's first meeting of the Council, at which the President, Mr G. T. W. Newsholme, welcomed the Society's Jubilee Year and the commencement of the new century. No ambiguity there. "It is my wish," said the President, "that the new century might bring better things for pharmacy."

A hundred years later, his wish is equally valid. Following Mr Newsholme's words, pharmacy waited another dozen years, until Lloyd George's National Insurance Act of 1911 returned a substantial part of the nation's dispensing, previously carried out by the doctors themselves, to the pharmacy. "The day pharmacy entered a New Era," reported The Journal. Pharmacists were recovering their rightful role. It was timely.

On 19 January 1901 The Journal was reporting that Mr Thomas Hallam, a Sheffield pawnbroker, had died as a result of taking aconite and belladonna liniment, due to supply of this simultaneously with a mixture, both being supplied by his doctor in identical bottles.

The jury recommended that all poisons supplied by medical practitioners and chemists should be in distinctive bottles labelled "Poison" on two sides. Issues of The Journal during the period recorded many accidental poisoning cases, frequently by liniments, phenol and arsenic and usually due to poorly labelled and non-distinctive containers.

On 26 January 1901, The Journal commented on a report, in The Daily News, that there was a movement among "East End medical men" to secure a minimum charge for attendance and medicine to be not lower than 6d a bottle. At the time it was claimed that the East End was "honeycombed with fully qualified doctors who are content to give attendance and medicine for 3d or 4d". One wonders about the quality of the medicine.

Despite this unpromising business environment for pharmacists, some might have been tempted by the offer for sale of a good class modern pharmacy, situated in a double- fronted corner shop in a commanding position in London's Wandsworth High Street. It was well fitted in mahogany and well stocked — offers in the region of £500.

Bills, Bills, Bills

In the first months of 1901 one topic, in particular, enlivened the pages of The Journal — the draft of a new Pharmacy Bill to be presented to Parliament. The Pharmacy Bill was one of many attempts to overcome the problems brought about by the poor drafting of the 1868 Pharmacy Act, which had been intended, among other legislation, to protect the professional titles of pharmacists, such as "chemist", "druggist" and "pharmacist".

A judgment in 1880 against the Society held that the restriction of title to individuals did not apply to corporate bodies. In consequence companies owned by unqualified individuals were free to describe themselves as "chemists", a great advantage to the evolving multiple retailers of the time. This rankled with the Pharmaceutical Society and, speaking in February 1901 at Cardiff, the President recalled that, following the case in 1880, the Council had drafted Bills in 1881 (16 clauses), 1883 (23 clauses) and in 1887, 1888, 1889 and 1890 but all had failed to become law, due to lack of support.

Trade or profession?

The Journal noted that the new Bill was being drafted in an attempt to regulate companies formed to carry on the business of a chemist and druggist. The tendency to consider trade interests in preference to a qualification having a professional significance, remarked an editorial commentator, had been the chief cause of division among chemists and druggists, and it still prevailed with the majority, who — looking into the wrong end of their glass — regarded pharmacy as a trade. The new draft Bill hoped to remedy the situation and the Council had decided to introduce words covering the dispensing of medical prescriptions in every part which dealt with the sale of poisons. In the event, the Bill failed, and even the 1908 Pharmacy Act did not legally protect the provision of dispensing. When the National Insurance Bill of 1911 entered Parliament, there was a still a situation in which anyone could dispense a prescription. Remarkably, it was only the sale of a poison, not the dispensing of it, which constituted an offence. By mid-February 1901, The Journal was reporting that "the difficulties of the disastrous war in South Africa" meant that there was little chance of the Pharmacy Bill becoming law in the present session of Parliament. This proved to be the case.

Beware Manchester beer!

A serious problem of arsenical poisoning had occurred in Lancashire, particularly in the Manchester area. The local coroner conducted 21 inquests into the matter and the cause proved to be cheap local beer. This had been fermented from brewers' sugar which had, in turn, been manufactured by a process involving impure sulphuric acid made from pyrites and containing significant quantities of arsenic. The Journal published various articles on the detection of arsenic in beer, using Marsh's test, which would not detect less than three-quarters of a grain of arsenic in one gallon of beer, and the possibly superior Gutzeit's test. Fortunately the epidemic soon abated.

Membership and subscriptions

The Society's registrar reported that in 1900 there were 2,236 pharmaceutical chemists and 13,627 chemists and druggists registered in accordance with the 1868 Act, a total of almost 16,000. But membership of the Society was not compulsory at the time and only 5,832 were subscribing members. All would have cause to be grateful to the Society in 1911 when Glyn-Jones, then the Society's parliamentary secretary, fought successfully for pharmacists' rights under the National Insurance Act. Readers were reminded to pay their annual subscription to the Society of one guinea, or 10 guineas for life membership, cheques to be payable to the Secretary, Richard Bremridge, whose surname appeared on the Society's letter headings as its telegraphic address until recent times. The annual subscription to The Journal was one pound.

Great hopes for adrenalin

Students, of whom 79 were registered with the Society, were well catered for by The Journal, with a wealth of technical articles and regular illustrated features on pharmacognosy. A group of 40 students from the Liverpool school of pharmacy had, reported The Journal, visited the United Alkali Company of Widnes to see the manufacture of sulphuric acid, soda and chlorine. In the area of pharmacology, The Journal reported a meeting of the Society in Edinburgh concerning the recent isolation, by Dr Jokichi Takamine, of adrenalin, the active substance of the suprarenal gland, noting its remarkable potency in a solution of 1:1000. The exact chemical nature of the substance had not yet been determined, said the report, and it was not yet introduced into actual use, "but if this substance fulfils the expectations raised regarding it, there is no doubt that it will prove a powerful and valuable agent in the hands of those specialists who have already found the suprarenal liquid so serviceable". Other claimed advances in therapeutics were less convincing. In April 1901 it was reported that urea was being administered by injection in doses of 20 grains three times a day as a treatment for tuberculosis. Urea was thought, by the enthusiasts concerned, to be "a direct antitoxin for the tubercle bacillus".

Boys will be boys

On the social side, the Poor Law Dispensers' Association held a smoking concert on 27 February with over 100 people present. Tickets were one shilling. The Chemists' Assistants' Union announced a smoking concert at the Horseshoe Hotel, Tottenham Court Road. In the midst of all this fugg, The Journal's "Notes in Parliament", a regular feature, reported that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been invited to consider a special tax on tobacco sold for cigarettes, due to the increase of smoking among young boys of all classes. It would appear that girls had not yet adopted the habit. The Chancellor, surprisingly, declined the opportunity to impose a new tax, saying that, "no amount of taxation would prevent boys smoking, especially if they were forbidden".

Crime and punishment

Several pharmacists in Brierley Hill, Staffordshire, were reported to have been fined one pound each for having unstamped weights and dispensing balances. A more expensive fine of £122, a considerable amount of money at the time, was imposed on a man for smuggling 48 pounds of saccharin through Grimsby docks. A duty of £1 per pound was payable in addition, although the material could be purchased at six shillings a pound in Hamburg, claimed the defendant.

Meanwhile, magistrates in Basingstoke had ordered four strokes of the birch for an 11-year-old boy who stole a bottle of scent and some smelling salts from a pharmacy. A very severe punishment to modern minds. By contrast, three children in Normanton died from taking powders in which strychnine had been dispensed in error for santonin, which had been prescribed. The bench found that the dispenser had been guilty of great negligence "but doubted whether it amounted to criminal neglect, and the defendant was therefore discharged". This would seem to be a remarkably easy escape by modern standards.

Music while you drill

In July, The Journal reported that a Parisian dentist had introduced into his operating room a musical phonograph "which plays sweet airs into the ears of patients while they are seated in the chair of terror". The patient listened with pleasure to the melodies, continued the report, and did not budge while the operator removed the most deeply rooted molar. Dr Laborde, the dentist, expressed the hope that the principle of the musical dentist's chair would soon be extended to the operating table. Bearing in mind the quality of "musical phonographs" of the time, this claim was perhaps surprising. More attractive, would seem to have been an alternative approach reported a couple of months later — the local injection a three-quarters of a grain of cocaine in eight minims of water, claimed to be sufficient for the extraction of one tooth.

A diamond anniversary

The 60th anniversary of the foundation of the Society fell on 15 April 1901. Not all its aspirations had been achieved by any means. In its editorial column that week, The Journal remarked that the Society should call for powers to establish a curriculum of study for pharmacy apprentices. Some candidates presenting themselves for qualification were found to be unfit for safe practice in the business of a chemist and druggist, claimed the writer, and gave evidence of defective training during apprenticeship. A major feature of The Journal of a century ago was the regular appearance of illustrated articles for students on the identification and uses of vegetable drugs. In September this featured an article on "The preparation of a student's herbarium". Instructions were included for the collection, preparation and examination of specimens, the provision of necessary instruments and the furnishing of a suitable cabinet. The dwindling number of pharmacists who can remember fitting up their own collections of pharmacognosy specimens will wonder how today's students would react to such a task.

The 60th annual general meeting was held at 17 Bloomsbury Square on 22 May at noon, followed by the annual dinner at the Hotel Metropole, attended by 200 guests, who paid one guinea each for tickets, to include wine. At the same time, a woman writing to The Journal under the pseudonym "Patricia", called for moves "to bind together in some form of united action the increasing body of women pharmacists and dispensers". She, a pharmacist, had been offered an important hospital appointment in London at a salary of only £60 per annum with no residence, on which, she claimed, it was impossible to live in London. With annual dinners at one guinea, it sounds as though she was right. The case for the Women Pharmacists' Association had been well made.

BPC 1901

The British Pharmaceutical Conference was held in Dublin at the Shelbourne Hotel. The presidential address delivered on 30 July considered progress made over the previous century, taking listeners back to 1801. During that time the population of England and Wales had increased from nine million people to more than 30 million.

The introduction of steamships and the telegraph had made the empire more homogeneous than in 1800, when we were separated from India by a six-month journey round the Cape, said the President, reduced to 14 days through the Suez canal, and the journey to Australia had been reduced to a month. The major progress achieved in chemistry, photography and bacteriology was then reviewed.

On the social side, some delegates took guided tours of the city by Irish jogging cart and these were greatly enjoyed.

The President's badge of office

The President's badge of office which was commissioned by the Society in 1901. These days, the badge is worn by the Society's Vice-President

Finally, the 60th anniversary was celebrated by the production of a badge of office for the Society's president. This was paid for by voluntary contributions made through local pharmaceutical associations. Contributions, some £128 in total, were acknowledged in The Journal and the badge was commissioned from Messrs Watherston & Son, of 12 Pall Mall East. The badge was presented to the President, Mr G. T. W. Newsholme, of Sheffield, on 1 October by Mr Michael Carteighe, who had himself been President for 14 years from 1882 to 1896, a record never surpassed — or likely to be. The hope was expressed that the names of all past and future Presidents would be recorded on clasps on the ribbon in due course. Mr Newsholme said that he intended to wear it at the Cutlers' Feast, an annual event in Sheffield held in the Cutlers' Hall in the presence of the Master Cutler. The badge was first worn by him at the annual dinner of the Sheffield Pharmaceutical and Chemical Society held on the 17 October 1901 attended by some 70 members including the medical officer of health for Sheffield and Mr Richard Bremridge, secretary of the Society.

The name of Mr Newsholme, a distinguished pharmacist who served as President for three terms, would be remembered for decades as the name over one of Sheffield's town-centre pharmacies. I well remember visits to Newsholme's to purchase potassium chlorate and sulphur, which were mixed together and then filled into the empty cartridge cases which were scattered over the Derbyshire moors above the city where soldiers had trained during the war. Closed up by pinching them with a pair of pliers — a most hazardous occupation — these home made explosive devices were then thrown into a bonfire with spectacular effect. It is perhaps surprising that I survived long enough to become a pharmacist.

Chemists' shop windows

At a meeting of the Chemists' Assistants and Apprentices Association held at 36 York Place, Edinburgh, a Dr Currie spoke on the need to cultivate a professional spirit. "The sight of some pharmacists' windows," said Dr Currie, "was calculated to lower their dignity to that of a mere tradesman!" Such a window might have been the envy of Mr J. Wood, MPS, of Bath Road, Ilkeston, whose window, reported The Journal, was smashed by a horse, doing considerable damage to the contents. The state of the horse was not reported.

Odds and ends

The Journal's "Market report" indicated that cocaine was trading at three shillings an ounce and that best cod-liver oil was 65 shillings per 25 gallon barrel. X-rays having come into medical use around 1896, the Roentgen Society was offering a gold medal to the manufacturer of the best practical X-ray tube. Mr Miller of St Pancras demonstrated to the Poor Law and Public Dispensers' Association (a forerunner of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists) his new methods of preparing turpentine liniment and improved cod-liver oil emulsion.

The Journal of the day included regular features on prescriptions and recipes. One of the more novel was a method of destroying cockroaches. A mixture of one part plaster of Paris and three parts flour was to be left on a saucer on the floor with some water nearby. The insects ate the bait, became thirsty, drank the water and then set solid "with fatal effect".