666 
PHARMACY ACT AMENDMENT BILL. 
This Bill, the purport of which, in the form in which it was introduced by 
Lord Robert Montagu, was explained in our number for April, and which we 
noticed last month as having been read a second time without alteration or 
remark, has received some additions in committee, and, having now passed 
the third reading in the House of Commons, it has been sent to the House of 
Lords, but it has not yet been printed with the alterations that have been 
made in it. As we have stated on a former occasion, the object of the Bill is 
to reserve the rights of medical practitioners and veterinary surgeons to dis¬ 
pense medicines to their patients, some doubts having arisen with reference 
to the operation of the Act of 1868 in some special cases. The clause, as it 
now stands in the Bill for meeting these cases, is as follows :— 
“ Nothing contained in the first fifteen sections of the recited Act shall affect any 
person who has been registered as a legally qualified medical practitioner before the 
passing of this Act; and the said clauses shall not apply to any person who may here¬ 
after be registered as a legally qualified practitioner, and who, in order to obtain his 
diploma for such registration, shall have passed an examination in pharmacy; nor shall 
the said clauses prevent any person who is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary 
Surgeons of Great Britain, or holds a certificate in veterinary surgery from the Highland 
and Agricultural Society of Scotland, from dispensing medicines for animals under his 
care.” 
A clause has been introduced which, we believe, will be acceptable to 
assistants of three years’ standing, who have desired to be admitted to the 
Modified Examination, but have been excluded by the provision that the 
three years’ service must have been immediately before the passing of the 
Act. This condition is removed by the clause in question, which provides 
that the engagement as a dispensing assistant to a chemist and druggist may 
have been at any time prior to the passing of the Act of 1868. The period 
during which application may be made to be admitted to the Modified Exa¬ 
mination is, at the same time, extended to the end oLthe present year. 
It is possible that some further modifications may be made in the Bill be¬ 
fore it passes, and, although tinkering in such cases is rather hazardous work, 
it may reasonably be anticipated that this attempt to amend the Pharmacy 
Act of 1868 will not be unattended with a satisfactory result. 
THE LAW RELATING TO THE SAFE KEEPING OF 
PETROLEUM. 
The Government have justified their promise to provide a remedy for the 
hardships complained of in connection with the keeping of petroleum under the 
regulations imposed by the Act of last Session. A Bill has been introduced 
and read a first time, which repeals the Acts of 1862 and 1868, for the safe 
keeping of petroleum, and re-enacts all the important provisions of those Acts, 
with certain exceptions, which are intended to meet the complaint alluded to. 
The principal complaint had reference to the sale of benzole or “Benzine 
Collas,” for this liquid being included under the definition of the term “petro¬ 
leum ” as given in the Act of 1868, those who sold it were obliged to obtain 
licences for doing so, and those licences often imposed regulations which were 
quite unnecessary and very troublesome and objectionable, as applied to the 
keeping and sale of such an article. 
