114 
THE NEW PHARMACY ACT. 
for compounding prescriptions before tbe passing of tkis Act (31st of July, 
1868); or a person who was registered before that time as an assistant or 
associate under the Act of 1852 ; or an assistant to a pharmaceutical chemist 
or chemist and druggist who had attained the age of twenty-one years and 
been for three years (also before that date) employed in dispensing and com¬ 
pounding prescriptions, and who shall, before the 31s£ day of December in the 
present year, send in a certificate to the Registrar of having been so engaged, 
and shall afterwards pass a modified examination; or a person who shall here¬ 
after pass the Minor examination of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
All these persons, being registered as chemists and druggists, may sell and 
keep open shop for dispensing and compounding poisons, but they must also 
“ conform to such regulations as to the keeping , dispensing , and selling of poisons 
as may from time to time be prescribed by the Pharmaceutical Society with the 
consent of the Privy Council .” 
Certain provisions to be observed in the sale of poisons are fixed in the 
Act, and it is of the utmost importance that all who sell them should study 
the 17th section carefully. 
It in effect says this— 
That no poison whatever, in a pure and simple form, shall be sold retail 
unless distinctly labelled with the name of the article, the word “ Poison,” 
and the name and address of the seller. 
That no poison shall be sold by wholesale to retail dealers unless the name 
of the article and the w r ord “ Poison ” be distinctly marked thereon. The 
same precaution to be applied to articles to be exported from Great Britain. 
That no poison which is named in Part I. of the schedule shall be sold by 
retailers to strangers unless introduced by persons known to the seller; that 
whenever any such is sold, the particulars of the sale shall be entered in a 
certain book kept specially for such entries, and the entry shall be signed by 
the purchaser and by the person who introduced him, if he was unknown to 
the seller. These stringent regulations, applicable to Part I. only, are not 
required to be observed by wholesale dealers in the ordinary course of whole¬ 
sale dealing or in exports. 
That masters shall be answ r erable for the acts of their apprentices and ser¬ 
vants in this matter. 
That none of the provisions of this section, either those first named for all 
poison, or the latter for poisons in Part I., shall in any way interfere with 
an apothecary in supplying medicines to his patients. 
Nor with a chemist registered under this Act in compounding medicines, 
provided he keep a copy of the prescription, or a record of the ingredients, 
with the name of the person for whom it is prepared, in a book as ordered, 
and put his ow r n name and address on tiie label containing the directions for 
use, or title of the compound as the case may be. 
Arsenic is only to be sold, as heretofore, under the provisions of the Ar¬ 
senic Act. 
We hope our readers will clearly understand the distinction between poi¬ 
sons in the first and second parts of the schedule. That there may be no 
mistake, we would add, without wishing to lessen in the smallest degree that 
caution which we think every chemist would feel it his duty to use, in the 
sale of such articles, as well for the public as his own safety, that the only 
legal requirement in selling oxalic acid, chloroform, belladonna and its pre¬ 
parations, essential oil of almonds, opium and all preparations of opium and 
poppies, is that they should be distinctly labelled as aforesaid, but that in 
selling any of the poisons set down in Part I., those additional precautions 
necessary for the identification of the purchaser must be observed. There 
are many dangerous articles passing through the hands of chemists daily, but 
