THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
YOL. YI.—No. Y.—NOVEMBER 1st, 1864. 
ON THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHEMIST 
IN DISPENSING MEDICINES. 
A case of attempted criminal abortion which recently occurred at Brighton 
has raised some questions relating to the duties of dispensing chemists, to 
which it is right to direct the attention of our readers. It appears that a 
young unmarried woman, a “lodging-house keeper,” obtained from a medical 
man a prescription ordering two ounces of tincture of ergot and two drachms 
of oil of pennyroyal, of which a teaspoonful was directed to be taken three 
times a day in water. This prescription was written in the usual medical 
form, and signed with the initials of the prescriber. It had been made up at 
various times by at least two different chemists in Brighton during the last 
four years, but latterly several bottles of the medicine were obtained within a 
comparatively short time from the chemist with whom the patient usually 
dealt; and the patient having died while taking the medicine, an inquest was 
held, and, after a full investigation of the circumstances of the case, in which 
it was proved that the deceased was four months gone in the family way, a 
verdict of felo de se was returned. This verdict was accompanied by a state¬ 
ment from the jury that “ they thought greater precaution should be used by 
chemists in dispensing such deleterious medicines.” A report of the proceed¬ 
ings at the inquest will be found in another part of this Journal. No one, 
after reading that report, can doubt, we presume, that the patient took the 
medicine with a criminal object, namely, that of producing abortion, and that 
the result of persisting in its use was the destruction of her own life. The 
questions to be considered by medical men and pharmaceutists are these :—- 
Was the medical man justified, under the circumstances, in ordering such a 
medicine, and was the chemist justified in dispensing it? Of course, we 
assume here that the medicine was originally prescribed for some other ob¬ 
ject than that for which it appears to have been frequently taken. The 
writer of the prescription alleges that the medicine was ordered for a bron¬ 
chial affection, but this will hardly be credited. We do not, however, pro¬ 
pose to discuss here the conduct of the prescriber so much as that of the dis¬ 
pensers of the medicine ; and we are the more induced to notice the subject in 
consequence of some remarks made upon it in the ‘ Medical Times and Gazette’ 
for October 15th. The editor, in a leading article on the subject, calls the 
“ attention of the Pharmaceutical Society to the following particulars :”— 
1st. The custom of prescribing, per se. 2ndly. The fact that strong me¬ 
dicines, such as Linurn catharticum, were prescribed for a woman of twenty-six, 
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