502 
IN THE FUTURE. 
weakest link; and this, the weakest link in the Poison Act, has to bear the 
strongest efforts to break it. We had hoped long ere this, as indeed we stated 
two months ago, that mitigating regulations would have been issued by the 
Pharmaceutical Society, with the concurrence of the Privy Council, which 
would have rendered this matter easy ; but the question is still delayed, and we 
are inundated with letters on the subject too numerous to publish. Some of 
them tell us of notices appearing in small shop-windows that “ The Paregoric 
sold here is not of the poisonous nature of that sold by the Chemists!' 1 ' Others 
of a lump of opium being put into a box, labelled “ Opiate Mass,” and stamped 
as a patent medicine. Others again, of laudanum being so sold by hawkers. 
In this latter case we believe a prosecution has already been instituted by the 
police. As to the paregoric notice, we may laugh at it. We cannot believe the 
Legislature would seriously order paregoric to be marked poison, unless they 
had a design on the very word u Foison ” itself, for assuredly it would be 
utterly destroyed by such false use, and we only take paregoric as a type of the 
articles about which there is difficulty; but on the opium and laudanum, which 
are to all iutents and purposes poisons and highly dangerous, we hold other 
views, and are clearly of opinion that such transparent evasions will not go un¬ 
punished. 
From what we hear now it seems this question of “ regulations ” is in abey¬ 
ance because it is thought that “Preparations of Opium,” and “ Preparations 
containing Opium " are two distinct classes, and we believe it is under 
consideration of counsel whether they cannot be so treated. Of course this 
would be by far the best solution of the question, and the inconvenience of the 
delay which has occurred would be fully compensated by such a termination. 
THE PHARMACY ACT AND MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS. 
We may congratulate ourselves that the opinion we expressed as to the 
action—or rather the non-action—of the Pharmacy Act on medical practitioners 
has been confirmed by that of the Scotch legal authority which appeared in a 
former number of this Journal, and by another obtained by the British Medical 
Council, which is reported in our present issue. 
TPIE BRITISH PPIARMACOPCEIA. 
It appears that of the 20,000 copies of the Pharmacopoeia which were printed 
about two years ago, 18,000 have already been sold, and that a reprint (not a 
new edition) will shortly be required to supply the continued demand. In 
reprinting the work no alteration, we understand, will be made, beyond the 
correction of a few typographical errors. 
IN THE FUTURE. 
“ Nullum est jam dictum, quod non dictum sit prius.” 
There are usually two sides to most questions, and not unfrequently it would 
be quite consistent with equity and fair dealing if plaintiff* and defendant were 
to change places. 
Hints to pupils and apprentices, like advice to those about to marry, have 
been as plentiful, to use a homely saying, as blackberries, and a common theme 
