482 
EXTRACTS EROM MINUTES OF EVIDENCE 
tion of life, that you are prepared to recommend this Committee to legislate to the 
extent of putting persons to the inconvenience you have alluded to for the sake of 
restricting the sale of poison ?—I am quite sure it is desirable for the safety of life. 
524. With regard to the Pharmaceutical Society, may I ask you, are you aware of 
what it is constituted ?—Yes, I have followed its history. 
525. Are you aware of who are the examining body ?—Yes. 
526. Are you aware that, with regard to the examining body of the Pharmaceutical 
Society, a great portion of them have not been examined themselves ?—Yes, quite 
aware of that. 
527. Would you say that at this moment of the trade of chemists and druggists 
throughout the country and particularly of the large towns ?—There are. 
528. But persons carrying on the trade of chemists and druggists, who are quite as 
competent to know the use of medicine as some of the examiners in the Pharmaceu¬ 
tical Society ?—That I do not doubt. _ .... 
529. Do you think, looking at that answer which you have given, that it is right to 
call on a man who, w r e will say, lives at Manchester or Leeds, and who has carried on 
a large business as a chemist and druggist, who is highly respected, and who is up to 
his work as well as anybody in London, to call on him to register, and have a certifi- 
cate given to him by persons not a bit better qualified than nimself 1 De is only ie- 
quired to go through a mere form ; to send his name, w r ith a small jee. 
530. Put yourself in the position of that man, would you like it P—I had to do it 
when the Medical Act passed ; I had to register, and pay £2 as a fee. 
531. But then you were admitted to some voice in the management of the society ? 
■■“Not Siij all. 
544. Will you tell us whether the Pharmaceutical Society has succeeded in extending 
its roots and branches into the country generally?—I do not know, and cannot say. 
545. You do not know of your own knowledge?—I only know that wherever they 
are, they are very much respected. 
546. You would think, would you not, whatever body it was that was appointed 
under legislation to be the ruling body, in this case should, as far as possible, have 
power and influence throughout the country at large ? I do not think that is essen¬ 
tial to it. . . 
555. I think you stated you thought those who carried on the trade oi druggists 
ought not to be authorized to prescribe?—They ought to be required not to prescribe, 
not systematically to prescribe. 
556. Supposing I was to go into a druggist’s shop and say, “ I have a sore-throat, 1 
wish you would give me something that might be usefulwhen he prescnoed a 
garble or something of that kind, it should not be allowed? The suggestion I made 
was, that the chemist should not be engaged in the treatment of diseases and injuries 
systematically, which is a different thing from giving such general advice as a friend 
might give. ... , ,. . , , 
557. Poor people go to a druggist’s shop ?—Yes ; it is the systematic going out and 
visiting and treating diseases at home which is injurious io the public. 
Lord Elcho. ] 619. As regards danger to the life in the making up of prescriptions, 
no doubt the knowledge would be desirable of the properties of the different drugs, 
but I do not see how the knowledge that one drug is a poison and the other is not 
would give safety to life against the purchase of those drugs for malpractices ?—I think 
the person, knowing the characters of poisons, would think much more of selling them 
than the man who merely sold them as a matter of trade. 
620. Now, in a village, suppose I intend to purchase poison to administer to some¬ 
body, and ask you for so much arsenic, how would the knowdedge whether J on have 
it or have it not prevent my purchasing that, and entering a false character with it. 
I think if a man knew that arsenic was poisonous (I refer not to arsenic alone, but to 
other things) that he himself w'ould make his own police regulations, and use the 
fullest precautions. 
624. Generally speaking, I gather from your evidence you think the caveat eniptor 
principle of legislation would be a first step and a safe one? To a great extent it 
would be. 
