ANNUAL MEETING. 
785 
the name and enter it in the registry, see that the person signed for it, and the re¬ 
sponsibility was off his shoulders altogether. With regard to the proposed regulations 
of this same Poison Bill, they were very similar to the ones now issued by the Council. 
The 16th section referring to the sale of poisons was as follows :—“Every person who 
keeps for sale by retail any poison, and every apothecary, surgeon-apothecary, or other 
member of the medical profession, or pharmaceutical chemist, and every officer of 
any hospital, infirmary, or dispensary, who has under his custody any poison, shall 
keep all such poisons together, and separated from all other drugs and medicines, and 
distinctly labelled with their names; and all jars and bottles in which any such 
poisons are kept by any such person, shall be distinguished in colour from the jars 
and bottles in which any other drugs or medicines are kept by him.” But what was 
the opinion of the Council at that time ? They said, “ The 16th section ordering 
the poisons in the schedule to be kept separate from other poisons, would interfere 
with the judicious and proper arrangement of a chemist’s establishment, and increase 
instead of diminishing the danger. The adoption of coloured bottles, as proposed, 
would, in the opinion of every practical pharmaceutist, greatly increase the danger.” 
And this was, he believed, the general opinion. If you made a special closet for 
putting poisons in, was there not as much danger of taking strychnia instead of 
morphia, or any other virulent poison, for a less powerful one, as at present ? The 
plan he adopted was to keep these dangerous articles as far as possible from any that 
were harmless, and he did not think any one could adopt a better plan than that, 
though, of course, each person had his own opinion. If you putin a closet morphia, 
and strychnia, and prussic acid, and a solution of strychnia, and a solution of morphia, 
amongst others which were in poison bottles, you would be just as likely, when going 
to the poison closet, to take one as the other, because all these regulations were merely 
mechanical aids, and when a man i3 going to make a mistake, no matter what mecha¬ 
nical aid was given him, he would make it. They had been told that education was 
to be the grand remedy, and that when chemists were properly educated they would 
never fail to read their labels, and they would have such a sense of responsibility that 
they would always make certain that they had what they wanted, and that if they 
went for rhubarb or jalap they would take care not to get cinchona or cubebs. But 
all these new regulations would tend to make a man forget to read the labels. He did 
not 3 ay that pi’oper precautions ought not to be taken, for they ought to adopt all 
precaution possible, but they did not want to be made into mere machines. A man 
who had a proper sense of responsibility when he was dispensing a medicine, would 
be independent of all these angular, corrugated, fluted, and sand-paper covered 
bottles; and, at any rate, his fingers would be quite as liable to betray him as his eyes. 
At the time he referred to, in 1858, the Council sent a petition to Parliament, con¬ 
taining this, amongst other statements, “ That the regulations in the fourth and fifth 
sections of the Sale of Poisons Bill now before your Honourable House, would inflict 
serious inconvenience and annoyance on your petitioners and the public, and, instead 
of affording security against crime and accident, would tend to increase the danger ; 
first, by giving a legal sanction to the sale of certain poisons now scarcely, if at all, 
accessible to the public ; secondly, by inducing purchasers to obtain larger supplies 
of poison than they require for present use, to save themselves the frequent repetition 
of the annoyance.” A great change seemed to have come over the spirit of the 
Council, or some of its members, since that time. They certainly had got examina¬ 
tions, and he hoped that by-and-by they would have education too, and then they 
would not require all these poison clauses and fancy bottles. However, amongst the 
reasons put forward at that time for the non-adoption of that Poison Bill, was this, 
Pharmaceutical Chemists, as well as medical men, should be exempted from the ne¬ 
cessity of adding the word “ Poison ” to the labels on their shop bottles. Of course, 
any one would put “poison” on strychnia, morphia, or prussic acid, but was there 
any safety in putting “poison” on tincture of cantharides or belladonna? They 
would not put “ poison ” on tincture of hyoscyamus, because that was not in the 
schedule, but it might be enlarged at any time. There was a list of about one hun¬ 
dred articles there now, and he did not see why they should not all be printed alike. 
Perhaps one of the worst parts of the regulations was the last, which stated that in 
dispensing and selling poisons, all liniments, embrocations, and lotions containing 
