ANNUAL MEETING. 
bottle of tincture of belladonna and the same of aconite, and he put these in one par* 
ticular place, but he did not put the liniment of aconite or belladonna next to it. By no 
means ; that was kept in another part of the shop, so that he could not help knowing 
•that if he went for the liniment, he could not take the tincture; but if these things 
were put in the same cupboard, and on the same shelf, what was to prevent him 
taking up the liniment instead of the tincture ? Again, turning to the Journal, he 
found it stated,—“ We know the difficulty of prescribing a fixed rule to be observed 
by all chemists in storing poisons. Over and over again we have declared in this 
Journal that such a thing would be impracticable, that one unbending rule applied 
without regard to ever-varying circumstances, must very often break down. Never¬ 
theless, it is perfectly well known that in almost every pharmacy of any repute, pre¬ 
cautions are adopted to lessen the chance of ex*ror and accident. These precautions, 
founded on the requirements of each establishment, are carried out without inconve¬ 
nience, and with so much apparent ease and advantage that a disregard of them would 
be a positive nuisance to the parties concerned.” Most heartily did he concur with the 
sentiments of that paragraph, which he thought must commend themselves to every 
one of common sense ; but the next sentence he could not understand. “ Therefore 
taking the various systems as alternative rules to be observed by all can be no hard¬ 
ship to any.” He could not understand the logic of that. It might be his denseness, 
but he could not understand the argument, that because every chemist used his own 
common sense in taking precautions against poisons, that therefore it w r as equally 
easy for them to be tied down to its three definite rules, because the three were in 
reality one; you might use either one, but you must use one. Again, he thought 
that the Council was now anxious to prove the fallacy of the argument used by those 
gentlemen who said when the Pharmacy Act was brought into use, that chemists 
would keep their schedule as small as possible. He was afraid, on the other hand, 
they wanted to prove that the Council was not asleep, but wanted to make the 
schedule as broad, as large, and as extensive as possible. That seemed to him the 
tendency at present, for only three or four months back there was a considerable 
addition to the schedule, and nobody knew but that next month they might have a 
long string more. He, for one, most heartily protested against the Council having 
the power of adding in this way without consulting the ty\ade at large. One further 
quotation he wished to make from the present Journal, where there was an assertion 
made,—“ Has not the Pharmaceutical Society received privileges under the Act of 
1868? and are not these privileges accompanied by duties? We do not anticipate 
that our Society will be walking into every chemist’s shop to overhaul his bottles, but 
we do feel that, in cases of accident, the observance or non-observance of the rules 
laid down by the Society will go vei’y far with judges and juries.” Now, with respect 
to the first part of that paragraph, knowing the kindness of heart which always in¬ 
fluenced Mr. Bremridge, and the politeness which he always showed to all members 
of the Society, he could not look upon him as regarding with any degree of pleasure 
the fact of going into a Court of law, and with his paper in his hand, before the 
summing up of the case, presenting this Act of Parliament, and saying, “Here is the 
Act we passed, these are the restrictions we bound down our members to obey, and if 
he has not obeyed them, convict him, and impose upon him the heaviest fine possible. 
He apprehended that was really the gist of the matter. This law would be in reality 
a law passed for the purpose of increasing the penalty in the case of any poor brother 
who happened to meet with an unfortunate accident. Taking all these things to¬ 
gether, he maintained that if they endeavoured to restrict themselves to the Act of 
Parliament, they Avould find enough difficulty. He was perfectly willing for the 
Council of the Society to give them the benefit of any suggestions, and he, for one, 
would be most willing to receive them, and so, lie believed, would all members of the 
trade; but he would entreat the Council to avoid, as far as possible, binding down 
their suggestions by an Act of Parliament. 
Mr. Collins said it appeared that the Council were under the impression that they 
were bound to submit these regulations. \V hetlier they were right or wrong in this 
view he did not pretend to say, but he certainly much objected to the mode in which 
they ivere presented, as admitting the principle, on the part ot the Council, ltprc- 
sentim* the trade at large, that it was at all necessary to prescribe these minute iuIcs 
O O' 
