870 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 29, 1871. 
1. The principle of free trade is not applicable to 
the pharmaceutical business. 
2. Free trade in pharmacy is antagonistic to the 
true interests of the public, and must ruin the pro¬ 
fession, hitherto so highly esteemed. 
3. The present system of licences is the best both 
for the public and for the proprietors of pharmacies. 
And, finally, the petition complains that the Go¬ 
vernment has removed the two apothecaries from the 
sanitary council of the empire at a time when in 
Russia two members of the Pharmaceutical Society 
of St. Petersburg have been appointed members of 
the supreme sanitary council, in order to report on 
all points connected with their profession. 
DISPENSING CHARGES. 
The question of securing a uniform rate of charges 
by chemists and druggists has been already debated 
in our columns.* The Manchester Chemists and 
Druggists’ Association gave the discussion a prac¬ 
tical turn by agreeing upon a list of dispensing 
charges, which they recommended for adoption by 
the trade generally.! This proceeding has now 
been followed by the issue of a list of retail prices 
and dispensing charges, recommended by the Bath 
Chemists and Druggists’ Association. We have 
been favoured with a cop} r of this list, to which the 
following preface is attached:— 
“At a meeting of the Association, held February 3rd, a 
Committee was appointed to draw up a price list with a 
view to promote uniformity amongst pharmaceutists in 
our own city, and partly also with the hope that other 
towns, in the West especially, will also issue and ex¬ 
change lists to the same end. 
“ It will be seen that the prices obtained in Bath agree 
very nearly with the Manchester list, and on comparing 
them with those of other towns, so far as it has been 
possible to do so, it has been found that they represent a 
fan- average. 
“As a matter of course, prices will always vary in 
different towns, and in different parts of the same town; 
Dut still much may be done to remove the reproach that 
pharmaceutists are now liable to, that the same prescrip¬ 
tion dispensed at respectable establishments in various 
parts of the kingdom is rarely charged for twice alike. 
“ Our Bath brethren are urged to abide as much as pos¬ 
sible, especially in dispensing, by this list, the prices of 
which are certainly far from excessive. Cheapen physic 
as we will, the public will never swallow an extra dose 
of it, and since we must live, cutting prices simply mean 
inferior drugs. It is as much therefore for the interest 
of the medical profession and the public generally as for 
ours that we should be properly remunerated. 
“ Even if ours were a mere trade, which it is not, our 
incomes are ridiculously small as compared with those of 
our neighbours who are grocers, drapers, wine mer¬ 
chants, etc., and this, too, in spite of the educational 
demands now very properly made upon us, and notwith¬ 
standing our long hours of responsible and hard work 
during the seven days of the week. 
“ It is requested that all prescriptions be marked under 
the stamp of the first dispenser.” 
* Ante, p. 549. f See p. 499. 
YOUNG’S PATENT POISON CABINET. 
Those of our readers who were able to visit the 
Exhibition of Objects relating to Pharmacy, held at 
Liverpool in connection with the last meeting of the 
British Pharmaceutical Conference, may perhaps 
remember seeing a model of a poison cabinet, ex¬ 
hibited by Mr. J. C. Young, of Warrington. A 
practical application of this plan, with some modi¬ 
fication in the details, is now being submitted to the 
trade by its inventor, which, it is claimed, wilL 
render difficult the occurrence of mistakes in dis¬ 
pensing. It consists of a certain number of shelves, 
according to the space allotted to it, and the quantity 
and size of the bottles to be accommodated. Each 
bottle is labelled, and has its proper place in the 
cabinet, into -which place it is securely fastened. On 
the front edge of the shelf are painted names corre¬ 
sponding with the labels on the bottles which are. 
supported by it. But these names are—with one 
exception, for the sake of variety—not immediately 
beneath the bottles to which they relate. Under 
each shelf is a movable indicator. When a certain 
bottle is required, the indicator is pushed along 
until it rests directly below the name painted on the 
front of the shelf, when it will be found that that 
particular bottle is released, but no other. Thus, 
should the strychnia be required, the name has first 
to be found and the indicator brought under it, ancl 
then the bottle itself, which may be five or six or 
more spaces oft’. This operation, although occupying 
a veiy short time, necessitates the reading of the 
name twice; and should an error be made either 
time, the bottle cannot be taken out. 
By another provision any mistake from putting; 
one bottle into the place of another is prevented. 
Not only is it necessary for the indicator to be in its 
proper place before a bottle can be replaced, but 
should two bottles be out at one time and the wrong 
one be taken up, it is not possible to put it into the 
wrong space, as each bottle is made to fit its own 
place and no other. 
One great advantage of such an arrangement as 
this is that it requires the intelligent reading of the 
label twice, and thus the dispenser’s attention is 
called to the nature of the substance which he is 
about to use. One objection to all previous mecha¬ 
nical contrivances for the same purpose has been 
their tendency to lead dispensers to trust in them 
entirely instead of using them as aids; transferring, 
as Mr. Squire pithily puts it, a man’s brains from 
his head to his fingers. Mr. Young’s invention, how¬ 
ever, is hardly open to this objection, as by a simple 
mechanism, not likely to get out of order, it prevents 
any poison-bottle being taken out of the cabinet 
without the dispenser being well aware of what he 
is doing. At a time when there is so much discus¬ 
sion upon the subject as at present, and when phar¬ 
macists are generally desirous of adopting any ad¬ 
ditional methods for securing safety from accidents, 
we think this Patent Poison Cabinet worthy of their 
consideration. 
