194 
ON THE DUTIES AND llESFONSIBILITlES OF 
whose catamenia had ceased six weeks. 3rdly. That one of the witnesses, 
Mr, S to well, not only undertook to prescribe, but alluded to some superior 
knowledge he possessed, stating, “ ice have better medicine to 'produce the 
desired results .” 4thly. That, spite of the habit of prescribing, respectable 
chemists, in giving evidence in this case, profess to be ignorant of the only 
purpose to which a compound of ergot and pennyroyal, in such doses, coiild 
be applied by a woman. He proceeds to say:—“We desire to hear the 
Pharmaceutical opinion of this case, officially; and meanwhile say: Take 
your line and keep to it. If you are to prescribe, please to study medicine, 
so that there may be no chance of giving Linum catharticum to pregnant 
women. But it will not do, both to prescribe and then to pretend that you 
are mere ministers who will sell whatever you are asked for, and that even 
though you supply a woman with means of abortion, you are to be considered 
innocent of all complicity.” 
How, three out of the four charges here made, and so pointedly urged, are 
disposed of by the simple statement, of which evidence will be found else¬ 
where in the present number of this Journal, that none of the chemists who 
gave evidence or were in any way implicated in the case, prescribed either 
Linum catharticum or anything else to the deceased. The editor of the 
4 Medical Times’ has evidently fallen into an error in supposing that Mr. 
5 to well was a chemist and druggist, whereas he is a member of the College 
of Surgeons of London, and has also an M.D. diploma. How this mistake 
could have been made we cannot conceive, for in the accounts we have 
seen in the newspapers he is represented as a medical practitioner. In one 
of his circulars now before us he speaks of having studied medicine at St. 
Bartholomew’s Hospital, so that in this case at least the study of medicine 
does not appear to have prevented the chance of Linum catharticum being 
given to pregnant women, for it was he who gave it. We would ask any can¬ 
did peruser of the evidence fin this case whether there is anything in it to 
justify the editor of a medical journal in passing over almost without com¬ 
ment the practices of members of his own profession, while he severely criti¬ 
cizes the conduct of the chemists who dispensed the medicine or gave evidence 
at the inquest. There is only one ground upon which any exception could 
possibly be taken to the conduct of the chemists in this case, and that is that 
they are expected to exercise a judicious control over the unsafe administra¬ 
tion of medicine. The question might certainly be raised whether such con¬ 
trol was exercised throughout in this case. We do not wish to exonerate 
those who undertake the duty of dispensing medicines from such responsibility. 
We have often referred to the importance of such a control being exercised 
to show the necessity for the acquirement of a considerable amount of pro¬ 
fessional knowledge by Pharmaceutical Chemists. Although we have reason 
to complain of much disingenuous criticism, on this and other occasions, we 
are glad to see some evidence of a new light breaking in upon the vision of 
our contemporary. We gather from the purport of his remarks above quoted 
that the dispenser of medicines is expected to know something more than the 
mere mechanical operations of correctly mixing and labelling what the phy¬ 
sician orders. This is a great step in advance of what he stated a few months 
ago. In February last we were told by him that “ any intelligent neat-handed 
lad or woman of ordinary education can be taught to dispense accurately and 
well in three months .” And further, we were told, “ Of this the chemist may 
be certain, that if any one is killed by the prescription of a physician, the 
penalty of the law will certainly not fall on the dispenser, if his duty be ac¬ 
curately performed, but on the prescriber.” Again lie says, March 5 th, “We 
hold that dispensers of medicine should possess competent knowledge of dis¬ 
pensing, (sic) just as other tradesmen should be acquainted with their several 
