382 
THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING PHARMACY. 
physician prescribed for his patient three grains of chloride of mercury, which, 
both by law and custom, signified calomel, and was a proper dose. To-day, 
habituated to the custom, and forgetful of the new law, he writes a similar pre¬ 
scription. What is the result ? The mechanical dispenser strictly performs his 
duty, accurately weighs three grains of “chloride of mercury,” and kills the 
patient with that which is by the British Pharmacopoeia corrosive sublimate. Is 
there no intelligence wanted, then, higher than that required for adjusting the 
mainspring of a watch or the lens of a microscope ? Is our contemporary entirely 
ignorant of the fact that physicians, like other men, are liable to error, and that 
their errors would frequently occasion serious results, were it not for the supervis¬ 
ing care of the dispensers into whose hands their prescriptions fall? We know 
too well the thankfulness of prescribers when reference is made to them in such 
cases, to believe that they would be satisfied with uneducated chemists. And if 
further proof were wanted, is it not found in the greater amount of patronage 
given by physicians to those establishments in which it is known that qualified 
dispensers are employed? What can have so perverted the judgment of the 
writer ? Is it that, “ if the amount of knoivledge required by a Pharmaceutical 
Chemist is such as to make it incumbent on the State to examine him, his busi¬ 
ness is at once elevated from a trade into a profession, and the line of demarca¬ 
tion between him and the practitioner of medicine who keeps an open surgery 
is rendered proportionately more inappreciable in the eyes of the public ?” We 
would not accuse him of such petty jealousy. He may rest assured that it is 
not the educated pharmaceutical chemist who trespasses on the ground of the 
doctor. Chemists are indignant at his estimate of the qualification necessary for 
them ; and we refer with much pleasure to a letter in our correspondence of 
this month, from Mr. J. Ruddock, who, although not a member of our Society, 
has addressed us on the subject.* 
Since the Pharmacy Act passed in 1852 many circumstances have occurred, 
trivial perhaps if regarded singly but important in the aggregate, to justify 
such an extension of it as its first promoters, with their intimate knowledge of 
the subject, deemed desirable even then. The recognition given by the State 
in questions of public employment, and certain privileges accorded to them, haver 
served to encourage pharmaceutical chemists; while the discussions arising from 
time to time on attempted Poison Bills have brought them prominently into notice, 
and led men best capable of judging, to the conclusion that, as an experiment, 
that Act has been successful. The facility afforded to the higher branches of 
the medical profession in obtaining information and assistance on matters of 
pharmacy from our Society has convinced them of its usefulness and satisfied 
them as to its character ; and it is indeed the proposition of a Committee of the 
Medical Council which has, like the last feather on the camel’s back, brought 
things to a crisis, and caused this general outburst. We have reason to believe 
that the Medical Council has really no desire to come into the realm of phar¬ 
macy, but seeing the absolute necessity of a compulsory examination for dis¬ 
pensers, and no Board armed with power to enforce it, the Committee stepped 
forward honestly to supply a deficiency. 
The question then arises whether, if chemists will on their own part earnestly 
set to work to perform for themselves, rather than let others perform for them, 
this acknowledged necessary work, the Medical Council would not gladly aid 
them in procuring the power to do it ? And this question now comes before us 
in a tangible shape. Our readers will observe in our present number of the 
Journal a memorial which has been presented to the Council, urging the pro¬ 
priety of calling a general meeting of the Society to consider “ the expediency 
of an immediate application to Parliament for an amended Pharmacy Act, 
* Tins letter is unavoidably postponed, for want of space.— Ed. Pn. Jouii. 
