418 



BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE, EXETER. 



1869. 



The Phar- 

 macy Act. 



Sale of poi 

 sons. 



Pharmacy Act, then just passed, and in listening to an explana- 

 tion of the new law, ably given by two members of the Confer- 

 ence who were particularly conversant with its provisions. It 

 would be interesting to know what have been the experiences 

 of our members as to the working of the Act in the practical 

 carrying on of business. Has it proved a safeguard and benefit 

 to the public ? Have its provisions with regard to the sale of 

 poisons been easily complied with, or have jthey been found 

 irksome, or even impracticable ? To these questions, it is to be 

 expected, the answers will be very various, owing to the diverse 

 character of the chemists' businesses on which the law will bear. 

 Speaking from my own experience, I may say that in the city of 

 London there has been very little difficulty in complying with 

 the requirements of the Pharmacy Act, and that its tendency 

 has been advantageous to public safety and convenience. On 

 the subject of registration and the other important provisions of 

 the Act, I will now say nothing ; but I must make a passing 

 allusion to the very great stimulus to improved education which 

 such a measure will infallibly prove. Its effects are already 

 apparent : in no previous year have the laboratories at Blooms- 

 bury Square been filled with more numerous and intelligent 

 students ; and though I know that some exception may be 

 taken to one class of our examinations on the ground of their 

 lenient character, it is no insignificant fact that 600 persons have 

 passed these ordeals in the house of the Pharmaceutical Society 

 during the first six months of the present year. 



With regard to the sale of poisons, it is not a little remarkable 

 that in this country no law should have been in force to restrain 

 or regulate it, until the Arsenic Act was passed in the year 1851. 

 Contrast this with the state of things in France, where so far 

 back as A.D. 1353, nearly five hundred years before, a law was 

 passed to regulate the profession of apothecary and herbalist 

 and to subject the shops of such persons to inspection. By this 

 law it was enacted, that they should not sell or deliver any 

 dangerous poisonous medicine or such as would occasion abor- 

 tion, whether simple or compound, to any person out of the 

 pale of the Christian faith, or to any person to have the same if 



