March 30, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS 
791 
JJarmattntital Jound. 
-♦-- 
SATURDAY, MARGE 30, 1872. . 
Communications for this Journal, and boohs for review,etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
ridge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square, JF.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London, W. Envelopes indorsed “ Pharm. Journ." 
THE PHARMACIST’S RESPONSIBILITIES. 
There are still, we believe, some lessons to be 
gathered from the Devonshire poisoning case re-- 
ported and commented on in last week’s Journal. 
We closed our notice of this case then with this re¬ 
mark “ Chemists should not only be themselves 
duly qualified, but should insist that every person 
entrusted by them to dispense medicines should be 
qualified also, if not by examination, at least by 
proper tuition and practice.” 
Nothing, it still seems to us, can be more obvious 
than this. It would be a mockery of all justice to 
that “ public” over whose interests the legislators 
of St. Stephen’s watch with so much zeal, were 
there no obligation, moral or legal, laid upon the 
proprietors of our pharmaceutical establishments to 
place in them assistants duly qualified to conduct, 
in their master’s absence, the dispensing portion of 
them business. It is not enough that the captain of 
the Great Eastern be himself a competent seaman; 
the pilot and engineer must also be proved and 
attested masters of their respective departments. It 
would avail but little for the safety of the great ship 
or of its freight, animate or inanimate, though the 
right orders be issued by the captain, were these, 
through “ ignorance or carelessness” on the part 
either of the pilot or engineer, not given effect to on 
their being issued. 
At present there is no legal obligation laid upon 
the master druggist as to the qualifications of his 
assistants. No doubt, in all our larger and better 
class of pharmaceutical establishments, the master 
does^, both on principle and from policy, insist upon 
Ins assistants possessing a measure, more or less 
sufficient, of skill in, and a knowledge of dispensing, 
before he entrusts them with the dispensing of pre¬ 
scriptions. The fact of being himself legally respon¬ 
sible for every act done in his premises by his assis¬ 
tants, and that, as consequent on this responsibility, 
heavy damages, direct and indirect, may at any mo¬ 
ment be laid upon him, is, doubtless, a powerful in¬ 
centive on the master to see that his assistants 
do possess a sufficient knowledge of dispensing 
before he admits them to situations of trust. 
It is, probably, too soon to moot the question, 
though we believe it must, and ought to be raised 
by-and-by;—Shall not every dispenser of a prescrip¬ 
tion, and every person entrusted with the sale of 
poisons used as medicinal agents, whether master or 
servant, be bound to pass some examination before- 
being allowed to do either of these acts ? When 
that good time comes, and not till then, can we hope 
to see an end put to the keeping of “ open shop” by 
those surgeons and doctors of medicine who now, as. 
a rule, leave the work of their shops to be carried on 
by boys, men, or women who, in ninety-nine cases 
out of a hundred, are by no means fitted for the re¬ 
sponsible duties with which they are entrusted. 
Nor till then, we fear, will there be any hope of 
the master being freed from the legal responsibility 
attaching to him (nor do we say that till then he 
ought) for the acts of his assistants, however nu¬ 
merous, or with whatever care they may have been 
selected. We by no means wish to remove any of 
the safeguards that the public are entitled to claim 
for the careful conducting of the very onerous and 
responsible business of the pharmaceutical chemist,, 
but we do think that even now the master who puts 
behind Ins counter only men who have passed the 
Major, or even the Minor examination, as fixed by 
law and carried out by officers sanctioned by Go¬ 
vernment, should be freed from the legal responsi¬ 
bility under which he at present lies for their acts. 
Even when freed from this, there would still remain 
an amount, and a kind, of responsibility on the 
master from which the proprietors of other businesses 
are, happily for them, altogether exempt. 
PROVINCIAL EDUCATION. 
We are indebted to Mr. Hadley for being able to 
publish on the opposite page the letter which he, as 
President of the Sheffield Pharmaceutical and Che¬ 
mical Association, has sent to various other local 
Associations. The attention now being directed to 
the subject of pharmaceutical education in the pro¬ 
vinces appears to have been in some measure the 
result of this letter; and as it has been several times 
referred to, its publication in the Journal seemed to 
be desirable. 
THE PUBLIC HEALTH BILLS. 
At a Conference on Thursday, March 21st, of the 
joint committee of the British Medical and Social 
Science Associations, recently formed to consider 
the Bills relating to the public health now before 
Parliament, several members of Parliament being 
present, eight points were indicated by Dr. A. P. 
Stewart, one of the honorary secretaries of the 
committee, the attainment of which was thought to 
be desirable. They were to the effect that sanitary 
administration should be vested in the Local Go¬ 
vernment Board, assisted by a Council of Health , 
that a pledge should be given by the Government 
