BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
165 
With regard to the suggestions of the Committee, he was a strong advocate for re¬ 
moving the dispensing department to a part of the shop where customers could not 
distract the attention of the dispenser bj conversation. The plan of checking all com¬ 
pounded medicines by a senior assistant was very important, and their method was 
for this person to receive the prescription from the customer, see to its being copied, 
place it and the necessary written label or labels in an envelope, and hand over to the 
dispenser. This plan answered well, and in his large experience he had never known 
a wrong label affixed, as it was ready written before the bottle, etc., was filled. The 
bottle was corked, but not tied over, and returned to the senior assistant to examine 
and wrap up. 
As a substitute for a “ poison cupboard ” under some circumstances, he had put a 
bar across a shelf of perhaps twenty bottles, and secured it by a lock. 
For liniments, he used the green “ actinic ” round phials made by the York Glass 
Company, with a distinct rough label bearing the word “ Poison." 
He (Mr. A.) trusted that the Conference would state clearly what precautions should 
be adopted, so that, in the event of any accident, those chemists who had employed 
them might be exonerated from the charge of carelessness. 
Mr. Balkwill considered that the carelessness of chemists had been grossly exag¬ 
gerated, and that the proportion of accidents occurring from poisons was small as 
compared with other causes of violent death. All knew how frequently medical men 
made serious blunders in writing prescriptions, the consequences of which were averted 
by the vigilance of the dispensing chemist. When, however, unqualified dispensers, 
as errand boys, etc., were employed by general practitioners, we could not doubt that 
the same errors in prescribing occurred, but that they were not rendered harmless as 
in our own case. He approved of most of the suggestions of the Committee. 
Mr. Schacht commended the system of checking, and had long adopted it. It was 
not only to prevent serious accident that it was important, but as an efficient remedy 
against those vexatious but trifling errors which altered the sensible quality of a me¬ 
dicine and destroyed the confidence of the patient. He could not avoid expressing 
his regret that Messrs. Clay and Abraham should have compromised the late action 
against them, instead of defending it, and at the same time the rights of the trade, 
before a jury. 
The suggestions of the Committee were then considered seriatim. In a discussion 
upon a separate dispensing department,— 
Mr. T. B. Groves objected that, being out of sight, it would be allowed to be un¬ 
tidy, and Mr. Leay feared that it would often be dark, if far from the window. 
Mr. Pooley denied that there were any sufficient reasons why such a place should 
be untidy. 
Mr. Daniel Bell Hanbury said that some establishments were so situated that 
the addition of a dispensing department was not practicable, which was the case in 
that with which he was connected. 
The President related the experience of another leading house in London, where 
the experiment of putting up a screen was tried more than thirty year3 since, but the 
old plan of using the counter indiscriminately for dispensing and retail had been re¬ 
turned to. 
Other members quoted the practice of Apothecaries’ Hall and leading dispensing 
houses in favour of the separate system. 
Mr. D. IIanbury spoke in favour of a “poison cupboard,” which was an arrange¬ 
ment existing at Plough Court, with the additional precaution that some of the more 
potent drugs were not allowed to be taken out without a witness. 
Mr. Merrikin called especial attention to the suggestion for the whole of the label 
being visible upon the front of the shop bottle. The Committee had been influenced 
by the knowledge of a case where Liq. Ammoniae was dispensed instead of Liq. Am¬ 
mon. Acet., and death resulted. 
Mr. Wade suggested that a useful precaution consisted in placing the ordinary¬ 
shaped label in a perpendicular position; thus, Yin. Colchici might be so labelled 
when standing, as it too frequently did, between Yin. Antimonialis and Yin. Ipeca- 
Ciianhaj. 
Mr. Pooley expressed approval of a label introduced by Messrs. Ford and Shap- 
