526 
PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
to take the place of the present Chemists and Druggists. Now, the great 
object of the present Bill is to place the trade of Chemists under complete re¬ 
striction as far as the making up of prescriptions is concerned ; Mr. Proctor 
wishes, instead of this, that the sale of a certain number of poisons should be 
prohibited. Whether this last plan would protect the trade more than the first 
we shall probably see as we go on ; but at all events, protection to the trade is 
the object of one plan as much as the other. 
If any man will take the trouble to draw up what he calls a Schedule of 
Poisons, which are in future only to be sold by Chemists who have passed an 
examination, and then will make inquiry of some practical man acquainted with 
the real requirements of the arts and manufactures of the country, and with 
the necessities of the public in all localities, in villages, hamlets, and thinly- 
peopled districts as well as large towns, he will find himself obliged to strike off 
one thing after another, until he feels that his Schedule, as “ the one point to 
model a Bill upon to protect the trade,” is a perfect absurdity. 
He will see that the quantities used by Chemists of some of our most common 
and dangerous poisons are perfectly insignificant compared with those used in 
manufactures and compounds of daily need ; that, to the makers of them, it 
would be hardly noticeable if the whole body of Chemists were to drop out of 
existence; that you must enact an examination for the painter, the dyer, the 
calico-printer, the paper-stainer, the photographer, the workers in glass and 
metal and a host of others, who all demand to buy their articles where they 
please and how they please, and where they can get them cheapest and most 
conveniently, and who would not tolerate any interference with their business 
by Chemists or anybody else. The list would be reduced still further by the 
requirements of the public who live far from towns, and who would claim to get 
at hand anything they stood in need of in case of emergency 5 and the Schedule 
of Poisons would be left in such a state that, if the trade could only be pro¬ 
tected by prohibiting the sale of these , it would be a miserable protection indeed. 
iL Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus” would certainly be written upon 
the Bill whose “ one simple point ” was this. 
Mr. Proctor says that in the provinces many Druggists make up prescriptions so 
seldom that the prohibition would be a thing they did not care for. Very well, 
then the Bill would leave them, in that respect where it found them, but it 
would still meet the complaint made by the public and the medical profession: 
that the lives of the sick are continually imperilled because the prescriptions, 
upon which their life or death may depend, may be made up by persons totally 
incompetent, and that there is no way by which the friends of the sufferer may 
guard themselves from this, for they can neither read the prescription themselves 
nor know by any title or distinction the educated naan from the pretender. And 
if a prohibition to make up prescriptions would not seriously affect the trade of 
a Druggist, depend upon it, the Schedule which the former inquiry would have 
left would make very little difference to him. 
Mr. Proctor says that there will be no difficulty in finding other titles than 
Chemist and Druggist to evade the Act, such as Medical Hall, etc. No doubt of 
it, and that is why the Bill does not confine itself to protecting a title, but pro¬ 
tects also the trade, and awards a penalty for keeping open shop, under any name , 
for the making up of prescriptions. In every town the man who has a right to 
make up prescriptions will stand higher than the man who has not, whatever 
tirie he may give his establishment; he will have the best trade, whether the 
prescriptions that come be many or few. 
I say but little upon the plan Mr. Proctor proposes as the practical result of 
all his arguments, viz. to give everybody, whoever he may be, ignorant or not, 
“ Pharmaceutical Chemist or Grocer,” the power to sell all sorts of poisons as 
long as he lives, if he apply for it up to a certain date, and pay a license to the 
