THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
YOL. XI.—No. VI.—DECEMBER, 1869. 
THE ALLEGED INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PHARMACY ACT 
OF 1868 TO RESTRICT THE SALE OF POISONS. 
Five short years ago there were not wanting men—and they are not all ex¬ 
tinct yet—who held that a Poison Bill only served to educate criminals. 
1 houghtful minds reverted to the atrocious deeds of the infamous Palmer, and 
it was broadly stated that the notoriety of his crimes, albeit discovered at last 
and visited with condign punishment, served more as an encouraging than a deter¬ 
rent example to like-minded men. Prior to his day, the poisons used for criminal 
purposes might be called clumsy, as to the mode of administration, and unsafe, 
inasmuch as they were easy of detection after the death of the victims ; it re¬ 
mained for Palmer, by applying his professional knowledge of the more subtle 
and active agents recently discovered, to found a new system of poisoning in 
England. All who remember the vast amount of labour and scientific skill re¬ 
quired to prove that Cooke died from the effects of strychnine, remembering, 
also, how greedily the evidence adduced on the trial was read from end to end 
of the kingdom, must admit that its perusal was calculated to instruct men 
in the art of poisoning. That it did so instruct, and perhaps create criminals, 
there can be little doubt; for it has been a rare thing since to hear of arsenic 
being employed for homicidal purposes. 
We have reason to believe that notions of this kind actuated the Council of 
the Pharmaceutical Society in resisting from time to time all Poison Bills which 
were introduced to Parliament. Their answer was, “ Compel the education of 
chemists and druggists ; restrict to them the sale and dispensing of poisons, and 
you will establish the greatest safeguard to be found in the matter.” Naturally 
it was felt that every man who knew the danger of his drugs, and appreciated 
the trust reposed in him, would feel the moral responsibility resting on him. 
Accordingly, until qualification of the vendor was taken as the basis of legisla¬ 
tion in the matter of selling poisons, the Pharmaceutical Society stood aloof, or 
rather were hostile to the imposition of restrictions as to the manner of selling. 
Qualification of the vendors was taken as a basis in the Act of 1868, and there¬ 
fore the Society proposed some rules, and assented to others, to be observed 
by them. The question was no easy one. Men engaged from day to day 
in selling and compounding drugs knew the difficulty of hedging certain 
poisons in with barriers likely to be overleaped ; they knew also the strong re- 
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