THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
YOL. XI.—No. XI.—MAT, 1870. 
THE PROPOSED REGULATIONS EOR STORING POISONS. 
Tlie forthcoming Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society bids fair 
to rival all preceding ones in the interest of the matter to be discussed thereat. 
There is more life and energy in our proceedings, now that the compulsory 
clauses of the Act of 1868 are in force, than there was when we only spoke 
hopefully of being one day able to regulate the practice of pharmacy autho¬ 
ritatively, and it is a good sign when men, rousing themselves to a sense of 
their duty and responsibility, come forward, some on the one side and some 
on the other of a question to discuss its merits, and bring various experiences 
to aid in a decision. “ Question put and carried unanimously reads well, 
and implies universal harmony; but we confess that we regard the thorough 
ventilation of a question as more conducive to ultimate good. 
Among the subjects for consideration on the 18th inst., none, perhaps, is 
more important than the “ proposed regulations for the keeping and dispensing 
of poisons.” On no question, except indeed the Pharmacy Act itself, do we 
remember to have had so many communications from our provincial cor¬ 
respondents ; therefore we doubt not that those who have written adversely 
will put in an appearance to support their views. 
That there should be difference of opinion can excite no surprise, seeing 
that there is, and must be, an equal difference of circumstances in various 
establishments. We are not, however, prepared to admit the opinion so often 
expressed, that a London chemist knows nothing of the style of business con¬ 
ducted by his brethren in the country, because, after all, the London chemist, 
in a vast majority of cases, is but a countryman transplanted. 
We believe the proposed regulations furnish ample evidence of this in the 
alternatives they offer to suit all circumstances. So many alternatives indeed, 
that one at least of our correspondents regards the fact as an error of the 
Council, thinks the three systems cannot be equally good, and that one only 
should have been selected and enforced. Those who join in this judgment 
will probably appear also to support it. 
On the other hand, the chemists and druggists of Leeds have put forth 
“a statement of objections” in an exactly contrary direction, and as their 
paper will, in all likelihood, form the outline of the discussion when the ques¬ 
tion comes before the Annual Meeting, it is desirable that those who feel in¬ 
terested in the regulations should well consider the present position of aflairs. 
We mean the position of the Pharmaceutical Society in its double relation, 
to the Government and public on the one side, to pharmacists on the other. 
VOL. xi. 2 x 
