68 
DEBATES ON PHARMACY BILE. 
Lord Elciio : Those marked with an asterisk are those which are most commonly 
and generally used for criminal purposes. 
Mr. Low t e : Others are not uncommonly used as poisons for the destruction of life. 
We know that John Sadleir destroyed himself with essential oil of almonds. Oxalic 
acid, cantharides, and, in fact, all those you propose to leave in the second class, with 
permission to sell without all the restrictions, are often used to destroy life. I beg to 
move the omission of this distinction. 
Lord Elcho : I am informed it is necessary and convenient that the proposed dis¬ 
tinction should be maintained in the schedule. If it be the wish of the Committee to 
abolish this distinction, I must reserve to myself the right of bringing up a new schedule 
on the report. 
The clause was agreed to in the following amended form and added to the Bill:—“ It 
shall be unlawful to sell any poison to any person unknown to the seller, unless introduced 
by some person known to the seller ; and on every sale of any such article the seller shall 
before delivery make or cause to be made entry in a book to be kept for that purpose 
stating, in the form set forth in the Schedule (F) to this Act, the date of the sale, the 
name and address of the purchaser, and the name of the person, if any, who introduced 
him, the name and quantity of the article sold, and the purpose for which it is stated 
by the purchaser to be required, to which entry the signature of the purchaser shall be 
affixed, and it shall be unlawful to sell any poison, either wholesale or by retail, unless 
the box, bottle, vessel, wrapper, or cover in which such poison is contained be distinctly' 
labelled with the name of the article and the word “poison,” and with the name and 
address of the seller of the poison, and any person selling poison otherwise than is here¬ 
in provided shall, under a summary conviction before two justices of the peace in 
England, or the sheriff in Scotland, be liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds for 
the first offence, and to a penalty not exceeding ten pounds for the second or any sub¬ 
sequent offence, and for the purposes of this section the person on whose behalf any sale- 
is made by any apprentice or servant shall be deemed to be the seller, but the provisions 
of this section, except as regards labelling, and the word “poison ” shall not apply to 
articles to be exported from Great Britain by wholesale dealers, nor to sales by whole¬ 
sale to retail dealers in the ordinary course of wholesale dealing, nor shall any of the 
provisions of this section apply to any medicine supplied by an apothecary to his patient, 
nor apply to any article when forming part of the ingredients of any medicine dispensed 
by a person registered under this Act and nothing in this Act contained, shall repeal or 
affect any of the provisions of an Act of the Session holden in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth years in the reign of her present Majesty, intituled “An Act to Regulate the 
Sale of Arsenic.” 
Mr. Eykyn : I have given notice of the following clause:—That from and after the 
passing of this Act every person duly qualified and registered under it as “chemist and 
druggist,” or “chemist” or “druggist,” being thereby entitled to keep open shop in 
Great Britain, for the compounding of the prescriptions of duly qualified medical prac¬ 
titioners, shall in like manner be deemed to be qualified to keep open shop for the com¬ 
pounding of prescriptions in Ireland, and shall not be subject for so doing to any prosecu¬ 
tion or penalty, notwithstanding any enactment to the contrary in the Apothecaries Act 
of Ireland of 1791. 31 Geo. III. c. 184. I have no wish to press the clause, if the learned 
Attorney-General for Ireland will undertake to bring in a Bill for Ireland next Session. 
The Attorney-General for Ireland : I shall be happy to keep the pledge, if I am 
in a position to do so next Session. 
The clause was not proposed. 
Mr. Lowe : I beg to move the following clause :—“ The provisions of the Act of the 
twenty-third and twenty-fourth of Victoria, chapter eighty-four, intituled, ‘ An Act for 
Preventing the Adulteration of Articles of Food or Drink,’ shall extend to all articles 
usually taken or sold as medicines, and every such adulteration of every such article 
shall be deemed an admixture injurious to health, and any person registered under this 
Act, who sells any such article adulterated, shall, unless the contrary be proved, be 
deemed to have knowledge of such adulteration.” 
Mr. M. Chambers : If this clause is agreed to, it will be throwing an undue and an 
unfair responsibility upon the retail chemist or druggist, because, as was shown on a 
former occasion, he is greatly at the mercy of the wholesale druggist. 
The clause was agreed to, and ordered to be added to the Bill. 
