ANNUAL MEETING, 791 
which he had put to him, because it would greatly help them in arriving at a de¬ 
cision. 
Mr. Fitch said he had no objection, individually, to the regulations, but it would 
be very inconvenient if every preparation of opium, such as paregoric and morphia 
lozenges, and articles of that kind, were obliged to be kept in a particular cupboard. 
He did not think the rule should be carried out strictly witli regard to what might 
be called the simple preparations. When the Bill first passed, he desired as a 
member of the Society to carry it out in all its integrity, but he found that not 
only were articles described as poisons sold, but that registered chemists bought 
almost all their medicated lozenges from one firm, the members of which were not 
registered chemists. He had referred to selling a certain article, because an appren¬ 
tice came for it, and it contained strychnine ; but, upon writing to the Council, he 
found it inserted in another list, and was informed he might sell it by putting the 
word “ Poison” on it. To show the difficulty which sometimes occurred, he might 
mention that a lady came to his shop one day for some tincture of cantharides, and, 
being in a hurry, he refused to sell it, unless she signed her name, which she refused 
to do. But he found afterwards that this particular article might have been sold. 
Hot having time to refer to the Act, he went by his common sense, which told him 
that it was as much a poison as many other articles included in the schedule. How¬ 
ever, he saw no objection to agreeing to the views of the Council on this matter. 
Mr. .Sandfoed said he had been so much mixed up with legislation on pharmacy 
matters that the meeting would no doubt bear with him while he said a word or two 
with regard to these regulations. He felt there was a responsibility thrown on the 
Society, which it had never had before. Allusion had been made to the action which 
had been taken when former Poison Bills were before the House of Commons. He 
had in his possession every Poison Bill which had ever been printed, and had been 
on the Council long enough to take part in the opposition to every such Bill ever pre¬ 
sented. He knew very well when those remarks were written which one gentleman 
had read, and the circumstances under which they were written. It was on the 
ground that the Poison Bills of that date said nothing whatever about the qualifica¬ 
tions of persons who handled poisons. He could tell them that Mr. Bell, who always 
opposed those Poison Bills, had himself proposed a Bill which would have enforced 
restrictions; but it was upon condition that all who dealt in poisons should be ex¬ 
amined and registered men. Mr. Bell "was quite right in advocating these restrictions, 
if they took education as the foundation of safety, for there could be no other 
proper foundation. When Mr. Vizer said that an educated man in taking a bottle of 
strychnine into his hand, knew that he held the life of his customer in his grasp, he 
surely did not object to the man being reminded that he had strychnine in his hand. 
It was not that all bottles of poison should be of the same shape, or that they 
should be all in one particular cupboard or compartment or apartment, or place set 
apart for dangerous articles. Strychnine might be kept here in a cupboard, morphia 
there tied over, and prussic acid somewhere else, in an angular bottle. Each one 
might do that which was convenient; and each gentleman who had a cwt. or a 
ton of arsenic might paint the cask in two or three colours to make it distinctive 
at once. But he knew very well that arsenic casks had very often been left exactly 
like other casks. Only that morning he had heard a gentleman say that he re¬ 
membered when required to make yellow arsenic, that he went amongst a row of 
tubs and found an arsenic cask standing by an arrowroot cask, on the top of which 
he blended his yellow ochre and arsenic. If things were to be kept in that careless 
manner, he could not deny the necessity there was for some restriction. He did not 
hear that any of these things were impracticable. On the contrary, they had all been 
carried out to a certain extent. But they did not like, as they said, to be tied hand and 
foot. One gentleman had shown him recently an indiarubber cap, which could be 
applied to the stopper of a bottle, which would be perfectly distinctive, and would always 
remain affixed to the stopper, so that it could not be kicked about the shop ; and lie 
should like to ask Mr. Dickinson what he would say to his assistants if he found them 
kicking the stoppers of bottles about; probably he would discharge them. As to the 
dispensing poisonous preparations, such as liniments or lotions in distinctive bottles, he 
thought a very good illustration of the necessity for so doing was given by the instance 
