PHARMACEUTICAL RESPONSIBILITY. 189 
of mentioning an interpretation of the law which was not afforded to us until 
near the termination of the proceedings in which w r e were involved. 
We had been led to suppose that the word “ may ” preceding the words 
“ give such compensation ” in the second clause of Lord Campbell’s Act, quoted 
by you at page 94 of your last number, w T as intended to give the jury a discre¬ 
tionary power, and enable them to take into consideration the blameworthiness 
of the employer whose servant might have accidentally caused death. But our 
counsel, Mr. Stephen Temple, Q.C., and Mr. J. R. Quain, advised us otherwise, 
—that, in the connection in which it is used, the word “ may” is equivalent to 
shall , and that whether the death was occasioned wholly by the act of our ser¬ 
vant, wholly by our own act, or partly by one and partly by the other, was im¬ 
material in assessing the amount of the damages. 
Under this interpretation of the law, it is evident that the richest member of 
the profession is liable to total ruin for acts which he can neither foresee nor 
prevent. We do not believe that any intelligent person who may consider the 
operation of such a law r can believe that it is reasonable. We should be content 
with such an alteration as would convert the compensation into a flue propor¬ 
tioned to the blameworthiness of the parties. 
We were informed that the deceased had insured his life for £1000, and we 
were advised that this sum, diminishing the loss to his family, was a set-off in 
our favour. 
W e crave also to put on record that the strychnia was in an opaque bottle, of 
which there were only fourteen in the shop, which were placed separate from 
the dispensing counter and from the bottles in ordinary demand, and that it 
was not near the Dover’s Powder. 
We are, your obedient servants, 
Clay and Abraham. 
Liverpool, 24 th September , 18G4. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—It was with much pleasure that I perused your able and equitably 
written article in the present number of the Pharmaceutical Journal on the 
above subject, and a few of the remarks you make therein induce me to take 
the liberty of intruding myself on your notice, to offer briefly a suggestion or 
two relative to the subject of which you treat. 
You make the inquiry, “ Now does it not behove us to consider how we can 
best turn this occurrence”—the late decision in the case of Messrs. Clay and 
Abraham, of Liverpool—“ to account in providing for the future?” and further 
on, u May there not be something done to relieve the individual who stands 
legally responsible for a fatal accident, when the most approved precautions 
have been adopted, from the infliction of an unmerited, although it may be not 
an unjust penalty ?” 
I fully agree with you that the knowledge that at any time his business may 
be shattered, and himself ruined, through the inadvertence or momentary care¬ 
lessness of even a trustworthy and efficient assistant, however well that business 
is habitually carried on, may well cause “painful reflections” in the mind of 
any thoughtful man ; but while reading your remarks, I could not help think¬ 
ing that such anxiety might be removed in a very simple manner. 
Let a fund be established bearing the title of “ The Chemists’ and Druggists’ 
Guarantee Fund,” the object of which would be to defray the fine imposed upon 
any subscriber to it who might have such fine imposed upon him in consequence 
of medicine of a poisonous nature having been by mistake supplied at his 
establishment, and death resulting to the person taking that medicine. 
VOL. VI. 
P 
