378 
THE PHARMACY ACT 0E 186S. 
to harmonize, or at least to work, by the aid of a little common sense on the 
part of those who have to interpret the law, and no man can do that properly 
without first mastering its object. In the present case, we have no doubt that 
many of the threatened difficulties will vanish as the Act comes fairly into ope¬ 
ration. The first, and the one put forth most prominently because it seemed to 
affect a very powerful and important class, was the grievance of the medical 
profession. The ‘ Lancet,’ on the part of English Physicians and Surgeons, 
acting as general practitioners without a qualification from the Society of Apo¬ 
thecaries, declared that such men could not even dispense medicine for their 
private patients without infringing the law. The Scotch Surgeons as a body 
(there being no Licentiates of the Society of Apothecaries in Scotland) raised 
a cry of alarm lest they should be deprived of the right of keeping open 
chemists’ shops, and resolved, with true north country wisdom, to take Counsel’s 
opinion on the question. They have done so, and the result, as may be seen 
from the “ opinion ” cited in another part of this Journal, entirely confirms the 
interpretation of the Act which we put forth last month as the true one, 
namely, that all men who have been examined in Pharmacy, and declared qualified 
to practise it by any licensing board recognized by the Medical Council of 
Great Britain, whether the Society of Apothecaries or not, are “ de facto ” 
Apothecaries within the scope and meaning of the Statute, and are consequently 
exempted from the operation of its first fifteen sections. This will, we hope, 
allay the fears of the profession who in the main approve the Pharmacy Act, 
and entirely acquit the Pharmaceutical Society of any desire to curtail their 
rights or privileges. 
Other persons, themselves Chemists and Druggists, have protested against 
the absurdity of applying the word poison alike to strychnine and paregoric, 
to cyanide and ferrocyanide of potassium. The necessity, or apparent ne¬ 
cessity, for so wantonly destroying the value of the word “ Poison” arises 
from another of those amendments on the original Bill in the House of Com¬ 
mons to which we before alluded. But those who introduced it, introduced 
also an antidote to the bane, by giving power to the Society, with the approval 
of the Privy Council, to make regulations for the sale of poisons. Such regula¬ 
tions are, we know, at this time under the consideration of the Privy Council, 
and, but for the interruption to official business caused by the change of minis¬ 
try, would have been ready for insertion in this number of our Journal. We 
still hope to have them in time to accompany, if not form part of it. We be¬ 
lieve those regulations will be so precise and simple in their character as to re¬ 
move any inconvenience and uncertainty which are at present anticipated by 
Chemists and Druggists, and to increase the safety of the public by a common 
sense rather than a stilted reading of the seventeenth section. We are able thus 
generally to characterize these proposed rules, although we regard it a matter of 
duty and policy not to mislead our readers by giving details which may yet be 
altered. 
The twenty-fifth section of the Pharmacy Act of 1868 transferred the power 
vested by the statute of 1852 in “ one of her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of 
State ” (and formerly exercised by the Home Secretary) to the Privy Council, 
the department in which all matters relating to the public health are conducted j 
and we believe the officials there have an earnest desire to maintain the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society in honour and efficiency for all time. 
With this view, and having regard to the different relationship in which 
the Society will hereafter stand towards the public, certain suggestions have 
been made by the Lords of the Privy Council for amendments in the Bye¬ 
laws, now that those laws are under consideration. These changes have occa¬ 
sioned considerable delay, and the necessity for again going through the whole 
question in a general meeting, as will be seen by the Secretary’s notice. The 
