December 24, 1870.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
510 
a joke for our own shoulders, leaving free those of the whole 
body of general practitioners, which has, in truth, far more 
to answer for than ourselves. 
Hampstead, Dec. 19 th, 1870. Charles Eve. 
Sir,—I rejoice to find that we are at last likely to obtain 
a settlement of this troublesome question, the Council having 
at their last meeting decided upon some simple regulations 
^hieh they will propose for the adoption of the next Annual 
Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society in May. The last 
Annual Meeting remitted this subject to their continued at¬ 
tention. We may rest assured that a Council elected so 
popularly as the present, and composed of good and trusted 
elements, will not have based their present conclusions upon 
rash or unconsidered grounds, and it is satisfactory to find 
that they were confirmed by a large majority of the Council. 
Nevertheless, a note of war comes from Manchester ! We 
may possibly expect another blast from Leeds. These cheer¬ 
ful notes will be useful in keeping the question warm until 
the opportunity of settling it comes. In the meantime let 
us hope that the several members of the great constituency 
in whose hands the decision rests, will be wise,—will not 
allow their judgment to be influenced by prejudice or par¬ 
tisanship, but will calmly and reasonably weigh the pro¬ 
posal the Council has made with so much care and delibera¬ 
tion. 
That the chemists of Great Britain must submit to some 
regulations for the storage of poisons is not to be doubted. 
Those who are acquainted with the history of the Pharmacy 
Act of 1868 know that it was not only first named a Poison 
Act, but that no Bill would have been submitted to Parlia¬ 
ment at that time but for the acknowledged necessity of 
observing further precautions in the use and keeping of poi¬ 
sons. The opportunity was adroitly taken to introduce into 
the measure security for the higher education of chemists, 
as one of the means supposed to promote the object in view. 
The gain to pharmacy was, and will yet be, immense. But 
that the primary object was the protection of the public from 
accidental and other poisoning, there cannot be a doubt. 
The Act, however, was confessedly incomplete without 
additional precautions for the safe keeping of poisons; and 
the Privy Council, therefore, discreetly determined to lay 
upon the Pharmaceutical Society the obligation to pro¬ 
vide such regulations as experience of the exigencies of 
the trade suggested. The Privy Council, urged on by con¬ 
stant articles in the public and medical journals, do now 
impress upon the Pharmaceutical Council very strongly the 
necessity for its action. The cry for some regulations has 
waxed so strong, that the Privy Council may propose some 
Bill to Parliament, should the present proposal be rejected, 
and that Bill might be most objectionable to us. The Council 
of the Pharmaceutical Society have, therefore, only performed 
a public duty, imposed upon them alike by honour and in¬ 
terest in conforming to these various demands. 
In spite, however, of these obligations, the glorious liberty 
of the Englishman to do as he pleases with his own, is so 
strong in the chemist, that certain of them are prepared to 
defy Councils, National, Privy and Pharmaceutical, in order 
to maintain his unrestricted liberty with his poisons. It is, 
however, a fact that, to the limitations of law, we owe our truest 
freedom; and, in the observance of restraint, we find our 
highest interests and happiness. In this case, moreover, the 
chemist is the defendant; the Government and the public 
are the plaintiffs. It is surely in the interest of the defen¬ 
dant, that he should, whilst the golden opportunity lasts, 
make his own regulations. 
The amended regulations which the Council now propose 
are extremely simple and will inconvenience nobody. It is 
admitted that most chemists in Great Britain already ob¬ 
serve these regulations in one or other of their forms,—and 
thus testify that such regulations are necessary and practical 
in their character. The non-observers are those who seldom 
dispense a prescription at all, but vend a motley variety of 
medicines and drysalteries, in which pills, paint, cream of 
tartar, arsenic, sweets and laudanum are the representatives. 
It ever there was any class of men who ought to be subject 
to poison regulations, it is this. Yet even to them, the 
proposed poison regulations have no sting. They may, if 
they like, keep their cask of arsenic in one corner, secured 
with a padlock on the cover. They may keep their carboy of 
laudanum under the counter in another place, but capped 
with leather, or distinguished by some other sign; and all 
their choice and other deadly poisons—strychnine, aconitine, 
morphine and what not else—on some special shelf or division 
in the shop, and thus fulfil, without inconvenience, the regu¬ 
lations proposed. 
One much paraded objection to any regulation is that it 
would necessitate the appointment of inspectors to enforce 
its observance. The idea is chimerical, were the regulations 
left to the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society; but pos¬ 
sible, if enforced by special Act of Parliament. 
The observance of approved regulations in the keeping of 
dangerous poisons would have this value, that their careful 
observance would, in the eye of the law, constitute a strong 
claim to favourable consideration in case of accident. It 
would also afford to the chemist a sense of security and satis¬ 
faction in the conduct of his business which he does not now 
possess. And as to the argument that any regulations are 
unfair which do not equally touch the dispensing surgeon and 
apothecary, this beneficial result would follow its partial ap¬ 
plication, viz. he that takes the physic would do so with 
much greater security if it were compounded by the chemist, 
than if it were made by the apothecary who observes no pre¬ 
caution in the protection of his clients from accident. 
A Pharmaceutical Chemist. 
(For the proposed Poison Regulations, see Pharmaceutical 
Journal, Dec. 17th, p. 491.) 
A Point oe Ethics. 
Sir,—In answer to two of your correspondents, relative to 
the prescription dispensed by “Magnesia,” No. 22, p.437, 
allow me to say that I do know that “ quinine” undissolved 
is “not so” bitter as in “solution,” and frequently ordered 
so by medical men to their patients, but in the prescription 
alluded to the deposit was something more than “ undissolved 
quinine,” and, perhaps, more nauseous to a weak stomach. 
1 still maintain the medical man in this instance forgot to 
add ac. sulph. dil. gtt. xij, having so frequently compounded 
nearly the identical prescription not only for one person but 
several. 
I would ask your correspondent, D. T. W., of Bath, who 
thinks that medical men are “not so forgetful” as I wish to 
make them, what he thinks of the enclosed prescriptions that 
have come under my notice from “ eminent medical men,” 
and whether he would hive compounded them (as they are 
written), or used his discretion and acted up to the best of 
his knowledge ?— 
R. Morph. Mur. gr. i 
Ext. Hyoscyam. gr. xij 
Ft. Pil. h. s. s. 
R. Hydrarg. Bichlorid. gr. xviij. 
Divid. in chart, xij, cap. i ter in dies. 
Those are not solitary cases; truly they do require looking 
after as well as chemists. 
Liverpool, Dec. 17th, 1870. Chemicus. 
Limits of the Medicine Stamp Duties Act. 
Sir,—Having to prepare a bottle of “ quinine wine” for a 
customer, I went to a respectable confectioner’s for “ orange 
wine;” it was old and not at all palatable. I did not pur¬ 
chase ; he then recollected he had j ust received a case of 
“quinine wine,” and opened it for me. On reading the label 
and enclosed handbill, I advised him not to sell any until I 
had written to Somerset House, as my notion was that it 
would require a stamp, and make it nccessary that he should 
take out a Patent Medicine Licence. I this day received a 
very courteous reply, stating that quinine wine is not re¬ 
garded as medicine within the meaning of the Medicine Stamp 
Duty Acts, etc. 
Sheffield, Dec. 1 bth, 1870. Henry Horncastle. 
The Pharmacy Act. 
Sir,—I wish to inquire, through the medium of your 
Journal whether the Council of the “Pharmaceutical So¬ 
ciety ” have not acted contrary to the full meaning of the 
‘ Pharmacy Act ’ in refusing to admit me as a member ? 
What is the limit of the discretionary power, and are they 
not bound to a just reason for their decision? 
Elizabeth Leech, Registered Chemist and Druggist. 
JElm Villa, Broadwater, Worthing, Dec. 17 th, 1870. 
