THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
VOL. VII.—-No. VI.—DECEMBER 1st, 1865. 
THE MEDICINE STAMP AND LICENCE ACTS. 
In some remarks we had occasion to make last month relating to the sale of 
quinine wine, reference was made to the circumstances which render the sale of 
medicines liable to the stamp and licence duties. Our remarks were elicited by 
a correspondence which has recently taken place between Mr. Waters, the 
manufacturer of TV aters’s quinine wine, and the Board of Inland Revenue, in 
which is a statement made by the Assistant Secretary of the Board that appeared 
to be inconsistent with a previous decision of the Board on the same subject. 
On the 3rd of December, 1863, Mr. Corbett, Secretary to the Board, in a letter 
addressed to Mr. Sandford, President of the Pharmaceutical Society,said, “The 
Loaid, however, have instructed me to add that, except in cases where there 
may be reason to believe that a beverage is sold under colour of a medicine, 
they will not interfere with the sale, without an excise licence, of medicated 
wines of the description adverted to, provided that such medicines do not fall 
un dei the category of Patent Medicines.’’ And then on the 31st of August last, 
Mr. Adam Young writes to Mr. Waters as followsThe Board having had 
before them your further application of the 3rd instant, I am directed to ac- 
quaint you that it had appeared to them, from their previous information, that 
your preparation 4 Orange Quinine Wine ’ was sold as a beverage, and not as a 
medicine. But, after further inquiries, they are inclined, and think that it is 
more properly classed with medicines, and that the patent medicine licence and 
stamped label are required for its sale.” 
This latter statement appeared to us inconsistent, not only with the previous 
decision of the Board, but also with the existing state of the laws affecting the 
sale of medicines. There might have been something, as we admitted, in the 
circumstances under which Waters’s quinine wine was sold, that rendered it 
liable to the stamp duty, and which would not apply to the preparation as 
usually sold by chemists and druggists; but we failed, on inquiry, to dis¬ 
cover any such circumstances, and were ready to conclude that the Board of 
Inland Revenue had not correctly represented the law, when we were induced 
ourselves to look a little more closely into the subject. There have been several 
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