THE PHARMACY ACT. 
141 
Mr. Smith supposed that persons not being registered could not sell the 
articles mentioned. 
Mr. Carteighe said they could not then assume the title of chemist or 
druggist, and collaterally, they could not sell any of the poisons mentioned 
in the schedules. 
Mr. Searby asked whether the Pharmaceutical Society would take any 
steps to register persons ; otherwise half the shopkeepers who had pestles and 
mortars would be registered as chemists and druggists. 
Mr. Carteighe replied that one clause in the Act defined the duty of the 
Registrar, who was under a severe penalty; in fact he was even liable to six 
months’ imprisonment if he neglected his duty. It would be his duty to see 
that the schedules were properly filled up, that the certificates were signed 
by the authorities named, and that they were duly qualified medical practi¬ 
tioners or magistrates. If a shopkeeper who had signed a certificate was 
found not to have been engaged in compounding prescriptions of duly quali¬ 
fied medical practitioners, it would be a penal offence. The second clause 
provided that the articles mentioned in Schedule A should be assumed to be 
poisonous. Many poisons of considerable virulence were, however, omitted, 
but it would be within the power of the Council of the Pharmaceutical So¬ 
ciety, with the accordance of the Privy Council, to order any other article 
which in a concentrated form would be poisonous to be added to the list, 
notice thereof to be given in the ‘ London Gazette.’ Chemists and druggists 
were defined in Clause 3, to be persons who had carried on that business “ in 
the keeping of open shop for the compounding of the prescriptions of duly 
qualified medical practitioners,” also of all assistants and associates who, be¬ 
fore the passing of the Act, should have been duly registered under or accord¬ 
ing to the provisions of the Pharmacy Act. After remarking that a duly 
qualified medical practitioner was one registered under the Medical Act, and 
that the majority of the Coffmites would be excluded, Mr. Carteighe, in 
reply to Mr. Lenton, said if a man who had settled in a village managed to 
get registered, and it should be found that he was not in the habit of com¬ 
pounding prescriptions, then he w r as liable to a penalty; and if it could be 
shown that his certificate was signed by a doctor, as suggested, knowing it to 
be incorrect, then that doctor would be liable to a penalty too. 
Mr. Lenton, East Dereham, thought that in the eye of the law such a 
man would be as well qualified as the best-educated man amongst them. 
Mr. Carteighe said not in dispensing; he must not only be a chemist and 
druggist, but a compounder of prescriptions. Clause 4 related to assistants 
and apprentices. Any person of full age at the. time of the passing of the 
Act, who should produce to the registrar a certificate that he had been for 
three years actually employed in dispensing prescriptions, should, on the 
passing of such modified examination as the Council of the Pharmaceutical 
Society, with the consent of the Privy Council, might declare to be sufficient 
evidence of his skill, be registered as a chemist and druggist under the Act. 
That clause was intended To apply to all brought up to the business in an 
orthodox manner. It seemed to be understood that assistants would have 
to go to London to be examined before the end of the year. Such was not 
the case. They must sign a schedule showing they were assistants, and their 
masters must sign a similar certificated schedule, showing that they had been 
•assistants, and then the application when made to the Registrar would be filed, 
and the assistant examined at any time convenient to himself, but before he 
went into business. . . 
Mr. Schacht was in favour of the examinations being local and simul¬ 
taneous, as it would put the assistants in the country at an unnecessary dis¬ 
advantage to go at any time up to London to pass the examination. He was 
