822 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
tlie result of our communication with the 
authorities at Somerset House, in order that 
vendors might not incur the penalty for in¬ 
fringing the Act. 
In order to get an explicit opinion from 
the Solicitor of Inland Revenue, we for¬ 
warded to him samples of most of the pro¬ 
prietary medicines which we import, and we 
are informed that—“Foreign medicines of 
all kinds, except drugs, are chargeable with 
the medicine stamp duty, according to the 
Act 52nd George III. c. 150.” 
Some discrimination is necessary, as for 
instance, medicated papers, such as Fayard’s, 
Aibespeyrc’s, and others, although not in 
the category of medicines, yet being of 
secret composition, and published for the 
relief of ailments, are subject to the stamp 
duty. Capsules containing pure drvgs, or 
preparations of pure carbon, such as Belloc’s, 
or any packets or bottles containing pure 
drugs, and declared as such, are not subject 
to stamp duty. 
The Solicitor to the Inland Revenue does 
not think that cigarettes are within the 
charge as medicines. 
Wo think that publicity should be given 
to this matter, as we ourselves have been fre¬ 
quently in a dilemma how to act, when our 
friends have insisted that we ought to sell 
certain goods to them without the stamp. 
For the future there can be no difficulty, 
and the trade are hound to stamp all secret 
medicines, whether for export ox home con¬ 
sumption, except they be sold in bond. Re¬ 
tail chemists and druggists would do w r ell to 
see that all such goods supplied to them are 
properly stamped, or some day they may be 
mulcted in heavy penalties. 
We are, Sir, yours obediently, 
Francis Newbery and Son. 
41 and 45, St. Paul’s Churchyard, 
London, L.C., May 24<th, 1870. 
Homceopathic Medicines. 
Sir,—I should be content to leave my 
previous remarks upon the traffic in homeo¬ 
pathic medicines by professed pharmaceutists 
without addition, if it were not that they 
have been somewhat misrepresented in the 
comments made upon them. 
I j udge it best to take no heed of observa¬ 
tions which are either complimentary or un¬ 
complimentary, further than to say, that I 
coi Id not have intended to annoy gentlemen 
who are perfect strangers to me, and wRoso 
experience might teach them that if you 
want to attract attention to a topic, the 
worst possible way is to “put too fine a 
point upon it.” 
It is painful to know that the real cause 
of the traffic in homoeopathy is to be found 
in the hardships under which pharmacy 
is often conducted, compelling some of our 
brethren to do that which must be inex¬ 
pressibly painful to them, and which they 
must feel to be a degradation to themselves 
and to their calling. They re-echo the plain¬ 
tive cry from Mantua, “Our poverty and 
not our will consents.” An unaffected sym¬ 
pathy for the difficulties of their circum¬ 
stances prevents me from more than hint¬ 
ing at them. “He sit perpetuum” is the 
object of pharmaceutical association; it is 
my object in exploring this cancerous infec¬ 
tion. 
Returning to our subject, I must be 
allowed to say that the justifications pleaded 
for those wRo take homoeopathy under the 
wing of pharmacy (other than that of stern 
necessity, against which no arguments avail) 
do not apply. I must recall your attention 
to the position advanced in my former letter. 
It was that the sale of homceopathic medi¬ 
cines by those who believe them to be shams 
(whether they be so or not) is incompatible 
with pretensions to professional status. I 
did not represent it as a breach of trade 
honesty, nor was the communication ex¬ 
pected to interest those who acknowledge 
no higher obligations. 
The assumed parallel of bread pills has no 
existence, so far as I know 7 . During thirty 
years’ experience in pharmacy, I have never 
"known bread-pills prescribed, nor have I 
heard that any individual or school of medi¬ 
cal practitioners has used them for the treat¬ 
ment of disease. If it w 7 ere so, it would be 
a parallel imposture with homoeopathy, to 
be dealt with in the same manner. I have 
heard vaguely of inert pills, bread or some 
other inoperative ingredient, being pre¬ 
scribed to cheat the perversity of hypochon¬ 
driac patients bent upon taking pills calcu¬ 
lated to do them injury. And I call upon 
the Editor to say if he meant anything 
more than this, wRen he referred to the 
administration of bread pills; and if not, 
wRether he thinks it was ingenuous to in¬ 
troduce such an illustration into the discus¬ 
sion. 
Mr. Marshall’s letter is not more to the 
purpose. He kindly assumes that I sell 
Morrison’s pills, and founds the major por¬ 
tion of his argument upon the assumption. 
I respectfully assure him that I consider 
Morrison’s pills an exaggerated instance of 
quackery, and take no credit for not dealing 
in them. As for Parr’s pills, “ et hoc genus 
omne,” I am constrained to admit (pace the 
high and dry school of optimists) that I have 
a considerable respect for patent medicines, 
wRich I believe to be so great a public con¬ 
venience as to be almost a public necessity ; 
and I am not at all disposed to join a Quix¬ 
otic crusade against them. They are, at all 
events, based upon rational principles of 
therapeutics, such as pharmacy acknow- 
