July 23, 1870.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
79 
Communications for this Journal , and books for review, 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
*** A 7 !? notice can be taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authen¬ 
ticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
Betts’ Suits. 
Sir,—The report of “ Betts’ Suits,” contained in your last 
number, is very complete and accurate; still, for those who 
are not acquainted with the commencement of these prosecu¬ 
tions, the part I played in this affair remains somewhat ob¬ 
scure, and I hope you will allow me to give the following ex¬ 
planations to your readers, without any reference or prejudice 
to the action still pending between Mr. Betts and myself in 
the Court of Chancery:— 
Since I commenced using capsules at my London manu¬ 
factory, I procured them from three different makers,—Dupre, 
of Paris, the original inventor of metallic capsules; Cour- 
douzy, of Bordeaux, and Espinasse, of Paris. These capsules 
were sold me as being made of tin, or alloys of tin, and never 
having had any warning from Mr. Betts as to an alleged in¬ 
fringement of his patent, I never dreamt they could be made 
of his metal. I was, therefore, much astonished at being 
served with a Bill in Chancery by Mr. Betts in April, 1865, 
without the slightest previous intimation. I naturally turned 
to those who had supplied me, and inquired what was the 
material of the capsules they had sold me. Dupre and 
Courdouzy made affidavits that they were not composed of 
the metal patented by Mr. Betts, and these affidavits were 
confirmed by chemical analysis made by Dr. Odling and Dr. 
Redwood. Mr. Betts himself tacitly acknowledged the truth 
of Dupre’s declaration, by withdrawing, at his own expense, 
a Bill he had filed against Mr. Fisher, of Leadenhall Street, 
for selling a bottle of my toilet vinegar with a capsule bear¬ 
ing that maker’s name. 
Espinasse alone admitted that the capsules he had supplied 
me with were made of the metal patented by Mr. Betts, 
although his billheads bearing the words, “Fabrique de Cap¬ 
sules eu Etain” (Tin Capsule Manufactory), had led me to 
suppose that he sold nothing but tin capsules. He added, 
that he worked under a licence of Mr. Betts, but when I 
asked him to produce it, and thus take the blame on his own 
shoulders, as he had never informed me of that circumstance 
whilst supplying me, he refused to interfere, saying he would 
do nothing against Mr. Betts’s interest. 
Now it turns out, on cross-examination of Mr. Betts, in 
the suits just tried, that the house trading in Paris under the 
name of Espinasse, was, in reality, the property of Mr. Betts, 
Espinasse being only his foreman,—so that Mr. Betts actually 
supplied me himself with the capsules which he called after¬ 
wards an infringement of his patent; and not only did he 
supply me, but he forwarded capsules from the same house 
direct to my London manufactory, so that even the poor plea 
of Betts the Frenchman and Betts the Englishman falls to 
the ground. 
As I said before, Mr. Betts filed his Bill against me in 
April I860, and, three months after, whilst negotiations for 
an amicable settlement were going on, he issued his batch of 
Bills against my customers without any previous warning to 
them or to me. You may judge how surprised I was at see¬ 
ing him thus seek his remedy on both sides. The first three 
persons who came to complain to me of having been served 
(all in one day), I consoled with the assurance that I should 
see them through, but when I heard that twenty-five bills 
had been filed all at once, and that there were many more in 
the course of preparation, I offered Mr. Betts One Thousand 
Pounds to put a stop to this system of prosecution which was 
calculated to ruin my trade. This sum he at first accepted, 
and afterwards declined. It was then that meetings were 
convened, and a Defence Fund was subscribed. 
I hope that the foregoing statements will suffice to establish 
the two chief points which I wish to impress on your readers; 
firstly, that I used proper caution in the purchase of my cap¬ 
sules, and was the victim of a deception which could not be 
toreseen; secondly, that I spared neither trouble nor expense 
to protect my customers, unconscious as I was of having 
done any wrong. 
I remain, Sir, yours respectfully, 
E. Rimmel. 
London, July 12, 1870. 
Navy Dispensers. 
Sir,—The members of the Pharmaceutical Society, and the 
readers of your Journal generally, must have been at least 
pleased with the congratulation offered to them in your 
article upon the action of the Government in respect to dis¬ 
pensers and assistant-dispensers in naval hospitals at home 
and abroad. 
That medicines in naval hospitals should be compounded 
and dispensed by hands as skilful, and directed with the same 
education as those required by civil communities, there can 
be no question; but, I think we may fairly ask in how far 
the naval service is likely to become popular, or an object of 
ambition ? and also what class of candidates the Admiralty 
will be likely to obtain for the remuneration they offer ? 
The claims of Pharmacists to recognition as members of 
a profession have long been admitted, and by the determina¬ 
tion of the Government as regards the navy dispensers an¬ 
other step is gained; but this advance becomes undesirable in 
proportion as the recognized position is made the excuse for 
inadequate remuneration. 
It is to be feared that the very imperfect knowledge, 
founded upon a baseless tradition as to the value of drugs, 
entertained by the public, and the ignorance that exists as to 
the disproportion of the remuneration to the responsibility 
incurred by the retail druggist in every prescription he dis¬ 
penses, may have, in some measure, guided the Lords of the 
Admiralty; and it would have been very desirable if the re¬ 
marks of Mr. R. W. Giles and Mr. Walter Powell, on the 
subject of the relation of remuneration to Pharmaceutical re¬ 
sponsibility, published in the ‘Pharmaceutical Journal,’ 
s. s., vol. x., could have been laid before the Lords Commis¬ 
sioners at the time they considered their scale of salaries. 
It is not, however, too late for the professional Pharmacist 
to press his claims with the Admiralty still further, but he 
ought to be supported by the body of his profession. 
In order to establish the professional position of the Phar¬ 
macist, the myth of the value of the materials employed 
must lie swept away, and an adequate remuneration de¬ 
manded by the retail druggist for skill and labour bestowed. 
Mr. Walter Powell, in reiterating* the sentiments ex¬ 
pressed by Mr. R. W. Gilesf in the highly important letter 
he addressed to the Norwich Conference, gives it as his opi¬ 
nion that “ the hope of better days, when the Pharmaceu¬ 
tist shall be regarded as a member of an honourable profes¬ 
sion, rests upon the excision and abandonment of all illegiti¬ 
mate departments of his business, and a more exclusive 
devotion of time and talent to his true profession.” He 
remarks further, “that, to do this, considerable augmenta¬ 
tion must be made in charges, which cannot longer be based 
upon the intrinsic value of medicines, nor upon the time 
occupied in their dispensing, but on the knowledge which 
enables the dispenser faithfully to further and interpret the 
wishes of the physician, thus rendering the former respon¬ 
sible trustee of the public weal.” 
Again, Mr. Giles clearly exemplifies the sacrifice of social 
status resulting from the association of a general trade with 
the special business of dispensing, and he shows that vend¬ 
ing of perfumery, hair washes, and the like, must remain a 
more profitable, as it is a less responsible employment for the 
qualified assistant, whose services it is necessary to engage, 
so long as the claim for skill, on the part of the professional 
dispenser, is unrecognized and inadequately remunerated. 
It is something to have established a claim to Government 
recognition, but it must not be forgotten that responsibility 
is engrafted on to, and inseparable from a recognized position; 
and that, therefore, a claim for remuneration commensurate 
with the responsibility must be established too. A qualified 
assistant can earn five shillings a day, and more, without the 
responsibility attaching to the navy appointment. Why then 
should he gratuitously undertake the responsibility P The 
very education the qualified dispenser has obtained is an in¬ 
vestment, the bare interest of which, at least, is reasonably 
due to him in addition to salary, while the latter ought to be 
very considerably in advance of that of an ordinary artisan. 
* Pharm. Journ. s.s. vol. x. p. 313. f Ibid. p. 160. 
