THE NEW PHARMACY ACT. 
115 
in the eye of this law none is poison unless named in the Act, or hereafter 
added by the authorities described in section 2. 
We have exhausted the duties. They are not onerous, perhaps scarcely 
more than careful men who have always scrupled to put dangerous articles 
into the hands of careless or ignorant customers will be glad to perform, be¬ 
cause there will be a reasonable ground now for asking questions of pur¬ 
chasers which might have been deemed impertinent or inquisitorial before. 
As to the copying of prescriptions, that is but an ordinary practice in most 
houses of business. 
Let us now say a word on the privileges. The sole right to sell and com¬ 
pound poisons, and use certain titles can need no comment; it is so important 
that few will deny it is worth the duties imposed, and the means of securing 
this right are easy for all men who were in business on their own account 
before the 31st of July, 1868. They have only to give the Registrar proof 
according to schedules C. and D. of their right, and lie must register them at 
once. If they apply before the last day of 1868 they will be registered with¬ 
out fee of any kind, if they delay their application beyond that time tln^ 
must pay the ordinary fee payable by those who pass the Minor examination, 
whatever that fee may from time to time be fixed at. They will too be 
eligible for election as members of the Pharmaceutical Society, and to sit at 
its Council Board. If any man should say, “ Of what advantage can that 
membership be?” we would reply, “ You see what position the Society has 
achieved by its union and faithful adherence to the principle of its founders; 
that pharmacy has been advanced to an honourable profession, the members 
of w-hich can meet in conference and discuss creditably questions both of 
class and public interest; that it has now been able to secure the full con¬ 
fidence and trust of the Government and Parliament; and that a certain por¬ 
tion of the honour and credit of a body corporate must always attach to the 
individual members of that body.” We might point to its Journal, its Li¬ 
brary, its Museum, its organization to resist encroachments from w hatever 
quarter they may be threatened,—and its “ Benevolent Fund,” but that we 
know nobody ever expects to w ant it. 
But the power to secure the right of registration on easy terms is not con¬ 
fined to men in business on their own account only. Assistants who were 
twenty-one years of age at the time of the passing of the Act, and had been 
employed in dispensing and compounding prescriptions during the preceding- 
three years, may, on passing a modified examination (the 'proposed synopsis 
of which will be found elsewhere in our present number), be registered also 
as Chemists and Druggists. They must, however, make application, and 
send their certificates to the Registrar during the present year, although 
they need not be examined so soon. 
As this is a point on which information is asked by many, we may state 
for their guidance that assistants of chemists only can claim this privilege. 
Surgeons w ho kept open shops for general dispensing and the sale of drugs 
to the public as well as their own patients, w r ere de facto chemists and drug¬ 
gists, and their assistants may be reckoned accordingly. JNot so dispensers 
in private surgeries, hospitals, or public dispensaries; and it should be re¬ 
marked, that heavy penalties are imposed on persons who obtain regis¬ 
tration by fraudulent means, as well as on the Registrar who shall admit 
improper persons. 
Several letters of complaint regarding the amendment made by the House 
of Commons in this particular section have reached us,—not so much on ac¬ 
count of the imposition of a modified examination on assisfimts, as on the 
condition of the three years’ practice being limited to the three years imme 
diately preceding the passing of the Act. We must confess some sympathy 
