ON ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
55 
public in the second, that their judgment is well founded. The Poison Bills 
Avhich are periodically brought before Parliament are sufficient evidence of the 
views which are held outside of our own body, and we must recollect that the juries 
to whom cases of accident are referred are selected from the public, and not 
from the craft. The Society has good reason to remember these Poison Bills, 
from the trouble and money they have cost in the efforts, only just successful, 
to prevent them becoming law. It is true that the provisions of these Bills 
have been absurd and vexatious; but this is only what we might expect of any 
regulations devised by those whose zeal was in advance of their knowledge. 
The public will have precautions against accident adopted; let them be of our 
own choosing rather than left to the selection of a Parliamentary Committee. 
Were the Pharmaceutical Society, acting officially as the body governing not 
only the interests of its own members, but those also of the nation at large, so 
far as pharmacy is concerned, to issue a series of simple and reasonable regula¬ 
tions with respect to the storing and dispensing of poisonous substances, it would 
require no other authority to ensure their general adoption. Then, any chemist 
whose misfortune it may be (and it may happen to any of us) to fall under the 
notice of a coroner’s jury, will have the advantage of being able to show that 
the system of his establishment is not at fault, and that the approved means of 
guarding against casualties have been thoroughly adopted ; the jury, on their 
side, will also be benefited by having a real standard, instead of an imaginary 
one suggested by an excited fancy, by which to determine the merits of the 
case. 
Recent events teach us that accident of the kind under consideration may be, 
and is followed by a civil action ; so that, in addition to the toilsome life and 
poor reward often dwelt upon, and so feelingly, in your pages, the pharma¬ 
ceutist has the ghost of pecuniary ruin staring him in the face, and he is de¬ 
prived of the power, which consciousness of right should impart, to disarm the 
intruder. With the assistance of such a document as I have alluded to, his 
position in common law would be materially altered, if indeed the question of 
damages were ever brought into court. I am not sufficiently versed in law to 
know how far Lord Campbell’s Act bears the construction which seems to be 
put upon it with reference to these cases, and it would have been well for us if 
some of the funds we see annually accounted for in the financial statement 
under the head of “ law expenses” had been expended in ascertaining how far 
the provisions of the Act affect members of the Society, and in warning those 
whom it concerned of their increased responsibilities. 
The great pity is, that the Society did not, years ago, take action in the ques¬ 
tion of accidental poisoning. Its views, then expressed, could not have failed 
to be taken as the basis of any Poison Bill which might have been brought into 
Parliament. Honourable members, knowing little about the real wants of the 
case, would have been ready enough to accept suggestions, sanctioned by the 
authority of those who have the best opportunity of forming a correct estimate, 
as the groundwork of legislation, being also well aware that in doing so they 
would secure the support of an important division of the community. We may 
at any time be threatened with another Bill similar in character to those which 
have gone before, causing us so much trouble ; and if public feeling be a little 
excited on the subject, we shall have greater difficulties than ever in inducing a 
Parliamentary Committee to listen to reason, so that we may still have enact¬ 
ments forced upon us, not only grievous to bear, but impossible to carry out to 
the letter. 
It was the opinion of the late Mr. Bell, that pharmaceutists had nothing to 
fear from a good Poison Bill; nay, more, that the next advance to the Society 
was likely to be most readily attained in connection with legislation on this 
question, and I agree almost entirely in what he said and wrote concerning it; 
