BENEVOLENT FUND. 
258 
not less than a grain of quinine to the ounce, and sell it without recommending 
it for any particular complaint, that any attempt will be made by the Excise to 
interfere with its sale. The Board admit that even Mr. Waters’s quinine wine 
should be considered a medicine rather than a beverage, and its sale must there¬ 
fore be subject to the laws relating to other similar preparations. 
It may be useful for us to state here briefly what the circumstances are that 
ender a medicine liable to the stamp duty. 
1. No medicine is liable if it be a simple uncompounded drug. The Acts im 
posing the stamp duty apply only to compounded or prepared medicines. 
2. Secret medicines or nostrums, sold as such, are liable to the duty. 
3. Medicines that are represented to be prepared exclusively by the person 
whose name they bear are liable. 
4. Any medicine that is recommended, on the label, or on a handbill, or by 
public advertisement, as a remedy for the cure or relief of any disease, is liable. 
“ The law is interpreted leniently with regard to ordinary domestic remedies, 
such as antibilious pills, cough pills, aperient pills, stomachic powder, essence of 
ginger, etc., which are sold by Chemists without any pretensions to exclusive 
right or mystery in the preparation. But if the words ‘ prepared only by A. B.’ 
be used, then A. B. is liable, as the maker of a nostrum exclusively prepared by 
himself. Even if the formula or mode of preparation be publicly known, and 
the original maker or inventor state that the genuine article is prepared only by 
himself, all others being spurious, he is liable, as a person claiming superiority 
over all others. Such preparations as liquor opii sedativus, liquor taraxaci, 
liquor sennse, etc., although each maker may profess superior skill in the mani¬ 
pulation, are not liable, because these medicines are not sold as nostrums for 
any specific purpose, but are comprised among the preparations ordinarily pre¬ 
scribed by medical men and used in dispensing establishments. But if such 
medicines, or even preparations of the Pharmacopoeia, be sold with labels or 
directions recommending them for any particular disorder, they come within 
the fourth condition above-named, and are therefore liable. This condition has 
given rise to a variety of questions and attempts at evasion, but the only 
qualification allowed is the following:—It is granted to be a matter of neces¬ 
sity that every medicine shall be so designated that it shall be distinguishable 
from other medicines. For example, the words 4 cough pills, 1 ‘antibilious pills,’ 
etc., may be used to identify the pills ; but the words ‘ pills for a cough,’ or 
‘ pills for bilious complaints,’ etc., make them liable, because the license to use 
such expressions would open the door to an extensive evasion of the Act.” 
THE BENEVOLENT FUND. 
Our present Journal records an important epoch in the progress of the Bene¬ 
volent Fund of the Pharmaceutical Society; the commencement of a system of 
continued relief, by way of annuities to necessitous members, which has been a 
long deferred hope among the supporters of that fund,—a hope, dating back 
from the very day of incorporation, sometimes damped by the apparent want of 
energy displayed in carrying out this object of the Society, but ever and anon 
revived and now crowned by success. 
Quietly, and almost unobserved, the Council has been enabled to relieve, from 
time to time, urgent cases of distress which have been brought before it, and, in 
the annual reports, members and associates have been reminded that as the 
Society advanced in age, so would its components individually ; but, that age 
which brought strength to the body corporate, might disable some of its members, 
and, consequently, larger demands might be expected on the Benevolent Fund. 
Happily, a conviction of this kind seems to have forced itself on some of our 
