The unconstitutional and illegal proceedings of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society / by William Dickinson.

  • Dickinson, William
Date:
[1853]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The unconstitutional and illegal proceedings of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society / by William Dickinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    nishing the force of my explanation on this point, that from the experience which I have had of the manner in which the business of the Society is conducted by your Council that before the above avowal was uttered there were ample grounds to justify the opinion expressed in the “ Annals of Pharmacy; ” and I have only to add, that I should have made this acknow- ledgment at the last Meeting had it not been palpably evident that a riotous majority of that Meeting* was assembled for the purpose of deciding on a foregone conclusion, and were ready to strike hut not to hear, and conse- quently that an apology expressed then would have been unsatisfactory and cowardly, because it would have appeared to have been extorted by an attempt at intimidation on the part of a disorderly Meeting whose feelings, I conceive, had been ungenerously excited by some Members of your Council. Having thus, as one of your representatives, fulfilled my duty in tender- ing this “explanation,” which I do only out of respect to the Members at large, I leave my case in your hands, that you may judge how far my colleagues in office are justified in endeavouring to remove me from the Council. I am willing to abide your wishes and decision. If you, however, consider that I am justified in the course I have taken, I rely on your active co-operation,! not so much to retain me in a position which the Council have rendered far from agreeable to myself, and which I should have long since vacated, but for the petty tyranny and overbearing assumption of one of the Board ; but that through me, you may vindicate the right of every Member of our Society to express, fearlessly, his opinions. For I hold that when such opinions are the result of careful deliberation, and based on sincere and honest convictions, and supported by the highest legal autho- rity in the country, that they should be maintained with energy and with- out hesitation. I am, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servant, WILLIAM DICKINSON. 16, Cambridge-street, Hyde-park, London, Nov. 5, 1853. * The Council can have but little reason to boast of the resolution carried at that Meeting, for it is a fact which can be proved by the books of the Society, that out of between two and three thousand members less than one hundred attended that Meeting, so anxious were they to express confidence in the Council; and of that number many were persons not legally Members of the So- ciety (having been elected under the Bye-law of November, 1852), whose votes, consequently, were not only interested, but also void. t Communications intended to be confidential will be strictly considered as such.
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