STATE OF PHARMACY IN FRANCE. 
327 
EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSION APPOINTED BY 
“LA SOCIETE MEDIC ALE DU PANTHEON” ON THE “EXERCISE OF 
PHARMACY, AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 
AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH.” 
The Commission was composed of MM. Blondeau and Deschamps, pharmaciens, 
and MM. Domerc and Saudras, medical practitioners. 
“ The Commission is unanimous in recognizing that the best means of preserving 
their reciprocal interests and prerogatives is to take, as the only limit of their professions, 
the advantage and safety of the public health. They point out the weakness of the 
present law, which dates from the year XI. of the Republic, and which is only a repro¬ 
duction, in many points imperfect, of the law of Louis XIII. This law prohibits secret 
remedies, and they swarm. It forbids the advertisement of secret or new preparations, 
and the newspapeft are filled with them. Pharmaciens ought not to supply medicines 
but with a physician’s prescription, yet, for the most part, as much medicine is sold 
without them as with them. They ought to confine themselves to the formulas of the 
Codex, yet many use other formulas ; and it thus happens that a medical man does not 
always obtain for his patients the medicine he desires. A great number of pharmaciens 
give daily consultations, some by prospectuses or pamphlets, others viva voce , and often 
in open consulting rooms and at fixed hours. 
“Finally, as this law neither defines a secret medicine nor a recognized medicina 
weight, it results that mineral water manufacturers, druggists, colour merchants, photo¬ 
graphers, perfumers, liqueur manufacturers, grocers, herbalists, seed merchants, sisters of 
mercy, somnambulists, homoeopathists, and a crowd of pretended chemists and charlatans 
exercise medicine and pharmacy more or less illegally, to the great dishonour of these 
honourable professions. They impose upon the public with lying advertisements, aud 
often with ignorance as dangerous as it is vulgar. A new legislation, giving greater 
protection to pharmacy and medicine, is thus become necessary.” 
The Society adopted the following propositions:— 
1. No one shall exercise medicine but a legally qualified medical man. 
2. No one shall exercise pharmacy but a legally qualified pharmacien; and in those 
places where there is no pharmacien, the duties shall be fulfilled by the medical practi¬ 
tioner. 
3. The pharmacien only has the right to prepare and sell medicines. 
4. Every substance or preparation shall be considered a medicine , which shall be sup¬ 
plied to the public as suitable to combat or prevent one or more diseases. The Codex 
will give a list of preparations which have come into general use, and which may be 
supplied without a prescription. 
5. Every simple or compound medicine shall be considered secret whose formula is 
not published in the French Codex, unless it be accompanied by its formula completely 
detailed. 
6. The sale of secret medicines is absolutely prohibited. 
7. In the public interest, medical and pharmaceutical advertisements are prohibited in 
the journals, and especially in the political journals. 
The Society decided that the above resolutions should be sent to the Minister of Agri¬ 
culture and of Commerce, praying him to take them into consideration. 
Henry’s Magnesia. —M. Henry of Manchester v . 46 Pharmaciens of Paris. 
For at least half a century the glass manufacturers have supplied for the sale of 
calcined magnesia moulded bottles, bearing on their sides the inscription “ Henry’s Cal¬ 
cined Magnesia, Manchester.” These bottles are to be found in nearly every pharmacy ; 
they a!re sold habitually, and without the slightest concealment. Their use is a custom 
which each pharmacien has received from his predecessor, to which he attaches no im¬ 
portance, beyond its influence on the sale, and which, if he had been requested, he would 
willingly have given up. The astonishment and excitement was then great, when it was 
announced that a large number of these bottles had been seized in the pharmacies of 
Paris, under the instructions of Messrs. Henry. The case, called several times before the 
tribunals, was decided on the 5th inst., judgment for the defendants ; Messrs. Henry to 
restore the bottles seized, and to pay to each pharmacien 100 francs damages. 
