76 
PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
it unlawful for a general dealer to have them on his premises for purposes of 
sale. 
It is easy to see, that the effect of such a measure would be to discourage the 
sale of drugs by general dealers, except where it was worth while to keep them 
in such quantities, and to exercise such care in their storing and disposal as 
would greatly enhance the public safety. Especially would this be the case 
with small shops in country places, and in obscure parts of large towns and 
cities, where laudanum has occasionally been sold for tincture of rhubarb, and 
poisons have been found in the same drawer with some innocuous substance, 
separated only by a partition. If, moreover, the licence above suggested were 
higher for dangerous than for innocuous articles, it would be an additional dis¬ 
couragement to the retailing of the former, or an extra inducement for caution, 
as, with such an Act in force, it would be easy to trace out the delinquent in any 
case of poisoning, and if culpable negligence could be satisfactorily proved, it 
should be made thereby punishable with some proportionate penalty. Those 
most advantaged by such a measure would be the public, but it would also im¬ 
prove the character of the legitimate drug trade ; for even if it created a class 
of licensed druggists, this would not prove any real injury to chemists, who, as 
a class, would thereby be relieved from their heavy and unprofitable trade, and 
yet retain the custom of families for drugs, etc. employed for domestic or medi¬ 
cinal purposes; their energies and capital being directed towards the develop¬ 
ment of the higher branches of the business, which, it may confidently be anti¬ 
cipated, would, with compulsory examinations, be rendered somewhat less keenly 
competitive. 
Undoubtedly, the greatest difficulty in the way of pharmaceutical legislation 
at the present time is the divided state of the trade with reference to it. So 
long as we are disagreeing amongst ourselves as to the kind of measure we want, 
it is not surprising that Parliament refuses to pay much attention to us. It is 
hardly to be expected that the Government should enter into our trade divisions 
and prejudices, or attempt to legislate between the accomplished pharmaceutist 
and his brother traders,—A., chemist and druggist (i. e. chemist and quasi-oil- 
man and colourman) from Yorkshire or Lincolnshire; and B., chemist and 
druggist (i. e. chemist and ^asi-apothecary, who doubtless gives “ advice 
gratis ”) from Whitechapel or Seven Dials. That the admission of all chemists 
to a uniform status must therefore constitute an essential principle in any 
Pharmacy Bill receiving the sanction of the Government, is simply a matter of 
political necessity. If such a measure is worth having at all for the sake of 
society and our successors in the trade, it is worth the sacrifice of feeling, or 
even status, on the part of Pharmaceutical Chemists which may be necessary to 
obtain it, and which would be amply repaid by the consciousness of being in¬ 
strumental in conferring on posterity the benefits which would accrue from it. 
The failure of the Pharmacy Bill, prepared under the auspices of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society (in many respects a good measure) to obtain the sanction of the 
Legislature, was doubtless chiefly due to its non-recognition of this principle of 
uniform comprehension. Apologizing for the length of this letter, 
I am, Sir, yours faithfully, 
A Member. 
London , S.L., April 16, 1866. 
PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—In your April number, a “ Member by Examination,” in his remarks 
on Pharmaceutical Legislation,” concluded with the hope that every private 
