October 5, 1895 
THE CHE MIST A^D DRUGGIST 
529 
and upper tunic of russet clotli, a hood and black cloak, stockings and flat 
shoes, with upper leathers about their ankles. 
That those admitted be single persons, or, if married, to part by consent 
and vow chastity, and if afterwards found incontinent to be expelled. 
To go to church regularly, and continue in brotherly love. 
None to go beyond the bounds prescribed. 
None to go into the bakehouse or brewhouse. 
None to touch anything, becairse persons under such a distemper are 
Slot to handle what is for the common use of men. 
English law compelled a man to give up everything before 
this isolation, and, if married, his wife was entitled to 
divorce. Apparently, nothing could be so perfect in theory 
as the means taken in those far-ofE days to prevent the 
spread of leprosy; bat Dr. Newman’s researches show that 
in practice law and regulations broke down utterly. Lepers 
were to be seen at fair and market, many succeeded in 
•escaping the lazar-houses and remaining in their own homes, 
and, as medical knowledge was deficient, there were , often 
more cases of non-leprous skin*disease in the lazar-houses 
than of true leprosy. Still leprosy existed, and from the 
beginning of the eleventh to the end of the fourteenth 
century it was at its zenith in England. Gradually cases 
became fewer and fewer, and when Henry VIII. introduced 
his reform lazar-houses were used pretty much as general 
hospitals. There is no clear evidence that the isolation 
system had any effect upon the decline of the scourge, but 
there is ample support to the suggestion that improved 
sanitation, better food, and general improvement in the 
social conditions of the people were synchronous with the 
decline of leprosy. In the worst days of the scourge houses 
were perfect hovels, salted fish and pork were the staple 
nitrogenous food of everybody, the bread was bad, vege- 
tables were almost unprocurable, potatoes unknown, and 
much of the food used was rich in ptomaines. The begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century witnessed a marked improve- 
ment throughout England, and it is curious that with the 
introduction of more liberal dietary, better clothing, wider 
streets, and better houses there was a quick decline in the 
number of lepers, so that by the end of that century the 
disease had ceased to be endemic in England. It lingered 
for a time in Wales and Ireland, but it was nearly 
two centuries later before leprosy was stamped out in 
Scotland, and almost within the memory of living man 
there were lepers in Shetland — the last relic of the 
strain carried down from the Middle Ages. At the present 
day lepers are to be counted by the thousands in Iceland and 
Norway, where the sanitary and social conditions of the 
people are akin to those obtaining in England during the 
Middle Ages, while the food is practically identical — a fish 
diet, with little carbohydrates, and vegetables rarely. We 
need not follow the scourge further, for the lesson is in what 
has been told. It is that isolation is not itself sufficient to 
stamp out a disease : there must be alteration of the con- 
ditions which induce it. This has been shown as much by 
the diminution of smallpox as by the extinction of leprosy. 
PHARMACY V. COMPANIES. 
We note with much satisfaction that the Pharmaceutical 
Council have resolved to take steps to press for the amend- 
ment of the company laws on the lines laid down in the 
report of the Board of Trade’s Committee, on which we com- 
mented on August 10, 1895. It may be remembered that that 
Committee recommended, i?iter alia, that the Courts should 
have power to wind up any company which was formed or 
had been carried on for any fraudulent or illegal purpose 
We pointed out that it only needs to alter those words so as 
to indicate that a company might be wound up if formed 
for any purpose which it would be illegal for an individual 
to compass — and this is well within the spirit of the Com- 
mittee’s recommendation — and then pharmacists would have 
obtained all the redress they can reasonably ask. If the 
Pharmaceutical Council will make this the special aim of 
their energies, setting aside for it for the present their other 
pharmacy Bill, they may be sure of the united and hearty 
support of the trade, and of a widespread sympathy from 
influential people outside. We urge them to proceed not only 
with vigour, but openly. There need be nothing to conceal 
in their action and aims. There will be of course a severe 
opposition from persons interested, but this must be expected, 
however secretly the crusade is carried on. Let us have a 
fair stand-up fight between the supporters of the Pharmacy 
Act on the one hand, and the advocates of company phar- 
macy on the other. 
THE EDINBURGH PRESS ON THE PHARMACY ACT 
PROSECUTIONS. 
The Edinburgh papers which have commented on the recent 
actions by the Pharmaceutical Society are very much shocked 
at the trade-unionism displayed by the Society. The J^vening 
Dispatch assumes a philosophical tone, and substitutes this 
for accurate acquaintance with the Pharmacy Act. “ It is 
the inherent vice of all legalised monopolies,” says the 
writer, “to endeavour illegally to extend the boundaries of 
their territory and control. They are perpetually forgetting 
that the legal limit is meant to be a limit from within as 
well as from without ; and that, indeed, it is a more serious 
and heinous offence for a privileged corporation to invade 
the common liberties of the citizens than for any individual 
citizen to encroach on the privileges of the corporation.” 
We do not quite understand this argument. If the legalised 
monopoly endeavours to extend itself illegally, we presume 
the legal authorities will stop it. Bat this is what the 
Pharmaceutical Society has done, it appears. “By the 
Pharmacy Act the pharmaceutical chemist has a monopoly 
of a very lucrative branch of trade. The basis of his 
monopoly does not lie in the materials with which he deals, 
bat in the fact that, in virtue of special knowedge, he is 
capable of turning them to special account in the service of 
the public. He alone has the right to keep open shop for 
employing the methods by which drugs are prepared and 
combined for administration (to use Dr. Lauder Brunton’s 
definition of pharmacy).” He has no such right. Then 
this scribe loses himself altogether. The pharmacist, he 
says, “uses iron for the preparation, say, of Blaud’s pills; 
but that does not give him a right to interfere with the iron- 
monger or the ink-manufacturer.” As it is not our business 
to teach the Dispatch man the Pharmacy Act or logic, we 
will not waste space by further quotation of his comments. 
The Dvenhig News opines that “ with the prosecutions by 
the Pharmaceutical Society of chemical-dealers for selling 
poisons scheduled under the Pharmacy Act the general 
public will have little sympathy. The action is that of a 
large medical trade-union desirous not so much of pro- 
tecting the general public as of protecting trade interests, 
which in this case coincides with public convenience.” The 
youth who writes this was probably an infant in 1863, but 
he knows all about the Legislature’s intentions at that time. 
“ The Legislature never intended to confine the sale of 
poisonous chemicals to a trade-union, bub only to prohibit 
the indiscriminate sale of poisons to the general public.” 
He is right there; but, if so, his conclusion is absurd. 
“ Consequently,” he says, “it is absurd that restrictions such 
as those the Pharmaceutical Society seeks to impose should 
be enforced.” Edinburgh was once regarded as the home 
of logic. But its evening papers will hardly help its 
reputation. 
A Good Liquid Glue may, according to the Dharm. 
o^'fhloralT/dratl “ aqueous solution 
