PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING PHARMACY. 507 
a 
so pleasantly carrying us back to our schoolboy days, by reminding us of those 
compositions we then used to write, in which we were wont to advance argu¬ 
ments containing their own refutation, and to ask questions without thinking 
what answer might be given to them. When we go for a recreative ramble 
through the pages of a fictitious novel, or other work entertaining in its day 
and generation, we go prepared to overlook all the discrepancies or contradic¬ 
tions of circumstance or opinion the author thinks proper to put therein; 
but when we take a first-class journal, supposed (as you observe) to express 
the opinions of those for whom and by whom it is written, and intended to be 
useful not only in its day and generation, but to have an effect in the time to 
come, we naturally expect to find consistency of thought and expression. Let 
us look at this wonderful article, and see whether it is consistent or not. “ In 
professions, knowledge alone is sold ; in trades, material.” “ A chemist’s 
business is simply a matter of buying drugs, compounding and selling them;” 
and yet “ we see districts where the medical man”—the professional man— 
“ is paid by his physic, and where the only remuneration paid for \\\s profes¬ 
sional services is the profit contingent on the medicines suppliedand if the 
chemist and druggist were to pass an examination, it makes his business a 
profession at once, notwithstanding it remains the same matter of buying 
drugs, compounding and selling them, that it -was before. Then he says, “ The 
physicians would wish their prescriptions dispensed as they wrote them.” 
We see there are mistakes among medical men ; but would your contemporary 
say those mistakes would not be much more frequent were every man allowed 
to practise and prescribe without first giving proof of his ability P and yet 
he asks, “ Would a certificate of competency be any safeguard that no mis¬ 
takes should ever be made in the shop of tire possessor ?” We don’t say it 
would; but is it not reasonable to suppose that it would diminish their num¬ 
ber, even as the certificate of competency to practise the art and mystery of 
medicine does so in the case of the profession? “ If a man is killed by the 
prescription of a physician, the penalty of the law -would not fall on the dis¬ 
penser, if his duty be accurately performed, but on the prescriber.” What 
is the duty of the dispenser,—to correct errors where they may by accident 
occur, or to shut his eyes to them ? I very much doubt whether any court 
of law would exonerate that man who dispensed a prescription and put the 
direction on it, knowing at the same time, if those directions were followed 
(which most likely would be the case), that death must ensue ; but, supposing 
the law did exonerate him, what would that other class of jifd^es (the public) 
say to it? Undoubtedly that man’s business would be sacrificed, and (to 
quote his own words again) “ that the public do form an adequate judgment, 
the position of such houses as Allen’s, Savory’s, Bell’s, Morson’s, Bullock’s, 
Squire’s, Corbyn’s, and a dozen others we could mention, prove.” “ What 
law is to prevent a chemist visiting when sent for?” I presume the same 
law that has hitherto done so since the passing of the Apothecaries’ Act. 
Which class are most likely to send those who apply to them for physic to a 
qualified practitioner, the educated pharmaceutist or the “ drysalter and oil¬ 
man ”? The position of the houses just referred to sufficiently indicates the 
quarter from whence the justly judging public apprehend the most danger. 
Such is my view of the case ; and I must say that even though writing in the 
interests of the “ great medical profession,” as the writer of that article ad¬ 
mits he does, I see no reason why justice should be lost sight of, and one class 
lowered for the exaltation (?) of the other. Apologizing for trespassing so 
long on your valuable time, I hope you will continue to maintain our cause 
as faithfully and as well as hitherto ; et in hac spe, maneo. 
Yours respectfully, 
One of the Trade. 
March 8th, 1864. 
