May 27,1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
955 
out except in single doses, and that upon the order of a 
medical man. 'When you consider that a man may be 
ordered a composing dose to be taken every two or three 
hours during the night, I think it would be rather 
awkward to require a doctor s order for each dose to be 
obtained. That shows you what may bo expected from 
the Privy Council, and that without our assistance they 
could not frame such regulations as should bo prac¬ 
ticable ; and it is no use making an Act of Parliament 
unless it is so, for it woidd never be followed. Upon 
the whole, therefore, I think that the question is not 
yet matured. When I was here last time, as a member of 
the Council, I said the same, and I still think so. I 
think the spirit of these meetings shows that there is an 
inclination to obey any laws that the Council like to 
make; and I think the tendency is to make such regula¬ 
tions, if they can, as shall, in every way, satisfy the 
Privy Council also. We are not a rebellious body, but wo 
do not think these are the things which should be made 
compulsory; therefore, I hope that another year, if we 
shall live so long, we shall have an amendment of this 
which will be more acceptable to the body at large. 
Mr. Hills : I wish to say shortly why I have changed 
my opinion, not since I have been in this room, but 
during the various meetings which we have had at the 
Council. I believe with many gentlemen who have 
spoken here to-day, that we must some day or other 
have regulations, and that they must be enforced— 
regulations framed by the Pharmaceutical Society and 
approved by the Privy Council. I originally was in 
the majority, thinking these regulations ought to be 
passed, and hoped that they would be confirmed by 
the meeting here and afterwards go to the Privy Council. 
But I changed my mind, because there seemed to bo so 
great an objection out-of-doors. I therefore thought 
it would be better to pass them as recommendations to 
be tried, feeling sure that if once tried they would be 
voluntarily adopted as regulations; they are now brought 
forward as recommendations, and I hope my friend Mr. 
Giles will withdraw his amendment. By doing so wo 
shall become, as has been said, a happy family ; and the 
trial of these recommendations of the Council for twelve 
months will so far convince us of their usefulness and 
practicability, that we shall adopt them as regulations 
at the next annual meeting. 
Mr. Saxdfoud : Gentlemen, I have often been re¬ 
ceived here with the same good-feeling which now greets 
me, and though I fear I shall differ from many of you 
to-day, still I hope we shall be as good friends as ever. I 
am sure, Mr. President, you will quite appreciate the 
difficulty under which I rise,—I, who have always held 
that the Council should stick together, and that if there 
is a majority on any one point, the minority should suc¬ 
cumb. I, being in the minority, a minority of one single 
individual, must now rise to oppose a majority. But in 
doing so, I act, as I ever have done, in the interests 
of the Pharmaceutical Society, because I believe most 
certainly that the course proposed by Mr. Giles is that 
which will secure for the Society the position which 
it has held hitherto, and which is now imperilled by 
the action, or rather want of action, proposed. It has 
been asked whether the Privy Council will be satisfied 
with these things as recommendations. I have had no 
communication with the Privy Council since, I think, 
January last, when the regulations in form were agreed 
to and submitted to this Council, and afterwards accepted 
by it. But I am perfectly satisfied that they would 
not be taken as of any value whatever. I think we 
must all of us have observed, gentlemen, that of late 
years the tendency of the Government has been to act 
in departments, and that certain subjects have been 
handed over to different departments. All matters con¬ 
nected with the public health have been handed over to 
the Privy Council, and I do not know that we should 
find fault with that because we want to have the Govern¬ 
ment of the country carried on as efficiently as possible. 
Formerly such questions were everybody’s business ; 
you might go to the Home Office, or the Board of 
Trade, or any other office; but now they are concentrated 
in the Privy Council Office, and there is a medical officer 
there who is one of the most active servants of the 
Government. We know perfectly well what the feeling 
of that medical officer is from what our friend Air. 
Squire says, of a notice I pointed out to him on the- 
paper, as our Bill went through, that no poison should 
be sold to any person except in medicinal doses, without 
the order in writing of a legally-qualified medical prac¬ 
titioner. That i3 the sort of thing which we may ex¬ 
pect from the Privy Council. I hold here in my hand 
all the Poison Bills which have ever boon introduced, 
there are no less than eight; and there is another very 
important one which was never introduced to Parlia¬ 
ment. And what do I find arc the provisions in these- 
Poison Bills ? I find that in the first, which was pro¬ 
posed by Lord Granville—I may say our friend Lord 
Granville, because it was through him we obtained 
our Bill,—that no poison should be sold except to per¬ 
sons of full age, that they shoidd not be sold with¬ 
out witnesses, that they should not be sold without the- 
certificate of a medical man, or a clergyman, or a magis¬ 
trate. I find that every poison is to be sent out in four¬ 
sided bottles, and that on each of those sides there should 
be the word “ poison ” impressed. I find that there- 
were inspectors to be appointed. Now the less wo say 
about inspectors the better; but I find, as I go on, that 
in one of these Bills the inspectors wore to be con¬ 
stables. Lord Granville’s Bill in May, 1857, was No. 1. 
It went on to Mr. Walpole, so both sides of the House 
were engaged in this matter. Mr. Walpole was in 
power in 1859, when he proposed his Bill, and he put 
in a provision that the constables were to visit and see 
that wo complied with the regulations. At that time 
Jacob Bell waas living, and under his guidance we op¬ 
posed all these Bills, but we did so on one special prin¬ 
ciple, viz. that they did not provide for the qualification 
of the vendor. I take up these Bills to show you that 
they were fairly considered in this Council, that they 
were considered as things which would go on, and they 
were amended by the Council. This Bill which I hold 
in my hand is covered over with erasures and altera¬ 
tions and interlineations made by way of amendment, 
by your Council. Therefore it is not a new subject with 
the Council at all. And what happened then ? Last 
of all, Jacob Bell himself drew a Bill. We have been, 
told over and over again that had Jacob Bell been living, 
we should never have been threatened with such a BilL 
as this ; that he would have led the trade and resisted it. 
But what did ho do ? He drew a Bill in which ho in¬ 
troduced as examiners of the Pharmaceutical Society a 
foreign body; and he not only did that, but he pro¬ 
posed this particular clause appointing inspectors, which* 
I must read to you, although I do not like to publish 
it. This Bill was never in Parliament; it was prepared, 
with the endorsement, that it was a Bill containing in 
substance “all that is valuable or likely to be practically 
useful to the public in the sale of poisons.” This, remem¬ 
ber, was a Poison Bill, not a Pharmacy Bill. It provided 
who should be allowed to sell poisons, and that all poisons, 
should be distinctly labelled with their names and so on, 
and then I find this clause, to which I want to call your 
attention. “ The President and Censors of the College- 
of Physicians of London shall have full power from time 
to time, at reasonable times in the day, to enter and 
search any shop or place where any drugs or medicine, 
simple or compounded, are sold by retail, to ascertain 
that the provisions of this Act concerning the keeping of 
poisons and the labelling of the same are duly observed.” 
That is the Bill which was prepared by Jacob Bell him¬ 
self to be submitted to Parliament. I just wished to 
show you that, to show in what a different position we 
now are. We have now the opportunity of making 
regulations without any inspection whatever. W o can- 
