87 
PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—It had been my intention not to trouble your readers with any remarks 
on the new Pharmacy Bill, but as my friend Dr. Edwards has mentioned my 
name in connection with it, I will, with your permission, occupy a small space 
in your columns. I will observe, in passing, how very glad I am to find that 
our genial and talented friend still takes an interest in our proceedings sufficient 
to induce him to send his quota of well-intended advice to help us in the pre¬ 
sent crisis. I can, however, scarcely bring myself to believe that his letter was 
written “ ex mere motu .” I fancy I can detect in it his own sound views, as 
shadowed forth in paragraph No. 4, overlaid by those of some energetic friend— 
a more advanced radical. 
The Doctor’s letter reveals an impression which I believe is pretty general 
(I have met with it in several cases when corresponding with friends on this 
subject) that the Bill reserves to us some power of selection by which unde¬ 
sirable members of the trade may be prevented assuming the membership of the 
Pharmaceutical Society. Such, however, is not the case. It is quite clear that 
“ all persons who at any time heretofore have carried on in Great Britain the 
business of a Chemist and Druggist, in the keeping of open shop for the com¬ 
pounding of the prescriptions of duly qualified medical praclitioners, . . . may, on 
or before the 81st day of December, 1868, by notice in writing, signed by them, 
and given to the Registrar, request to be registered under this Act,” and 1,1 shall, 
on production of certificates according to the schedule C and D to this Act, be 
registered accordingly.” 
Schedule C is simply a form of declaration that the person signing was in 
business as a Chemist and Druggist at a certain place on or before a certain 
date. 
Schedule D is a declaration on the part of a duly qualified Medical Practi¬ 
tioner that to his knowledge the statements in Schedule C are true. 
The Register is open to every man that either is in business or ever has been 
in business as a Chemist and Druggist. It would, or at any rate might, include 
homoeopathists, herbalists, Coffinites, etc., as well as those disreputable persons 
whose shops are kept going solely by the sale of anti-venereal remedies, pre¬ 
ventives, and the like. 
Once on the Register, clause 19 provides “ that he who is or has been or shall 
for the time being be in business as a Chemist and Druggist as aforesaid, and 
who shall be registered as a Chemist and Druggist, shall be eligible to be elected 
and continue a member of the Pharmaceutical Society according to the bye-laws 
thereof,” etc. 
The proper legal definition of the term “ eligible ” was given by our Provi¬ 
dent to a deputation who amongst other things complained that under the 
operation of the 19th clause a registered Chemist might be capriciously and un¬ 
justly excluded from the membership of the Pharmaceutical Society. It was 
then pointed out that the exclusion could not be effected except for such bona 
fide reasons as would be satisfactory to the Court of Queen’s Bench, were the 
excluded party to apply for a writ of mandamus against the Council. Practi¬ 
cally therefore it would be to ask and to have as a matter of course—“ holus 
bolus" we must take them if they choose to come. In my opinion we should 
be far more likely to attract to our Society the lower stratum of “outsiders 
than the upper 500, whose admission Mr. Betty assures us is all that we have 
to look forward to. The former would have something to gain by assuming a 
title now at last acknowledged to mean something ; the latter, satisfied with 
their position, would in all probability be too proud to accept as a boon that 
