PHARMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
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approval of one of her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State. (Hear, hear.) The 
only question for consideration is whether these examinations will afford that security to 
the public which they have a right to expect, or whether they may not be too severe, 
and thus exclude persons from carrying on the business of Chemists and Druggists who 
might safely and properly be allowed to carry on this trade. (Hear, hear.) Now, Sir, it 
is quite impossible for me to speak too confidently of the nature and character of these 
examinations. The} 1- have been in existence and in actual practice for more than twenty 
years, and have been recognized and confirmed by an Act of Parliament which was 
passed in the year 1852, in which Act these examinations were made the subject of 
certain provisions. That Act was called the Pharmacy Act, and it received the sanction 
©f her Majesty’s Government of that period, and has been upheld by successive Govern¬ 
ments, who approved of and supported it, and I now appeal to her Majesty’s Govern¬ 
ment to approve and support this Bill. (Hear, hear.) I may inform the House that 
since the passing of the Act of 1852 the Government, or rather that part of it which 
governs the army, have required every army dispenser to obtain a certificate from the 
Pharmaceutical Society. This shows that those to whom the management of the army 
has been entrusted have stamped their approval upon all the proceedings of the Society; 
they have forbidden any one from becoming an army dispenser, they have prevented 
any one from dispensing or making up medicine for the army, in all its branches, except 
upon a certificate of the examiners appointed by the Pharmaceutical Society. And 
now it is desired to carry out the provisions of the Act of 1852 to a greater extent, 
so that the public may be protected against the danger of persons making up pre¬ 
scriptions unless they have previously passed an examination under the auspices of 
the Society. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, the whole effect of this Bill is neither more nor 
less than this, first, to protect the public by enacting that no one shall be permitted, ex¬ 
cept those to whom I will hereafter allude, .to become or practise as a Chemist and 
Druggist for the compounding of medicines, or for the making up of prescriptions, unless 
he shall have been registered by the Pharmaceutical Society ; and in order to be registered 
he must submit to an examination, and to be examined by the Pharmaceutical Society; 
and upon their certificate he may cause himself to be registered. A very great number 
of persons—some thousands—now carry on the business of Chemists and Druggists, and 
it has been thought too strong a measure, at least for any one but her Majesty’s Govern¬ 
ment, to propose to this House to lay any important restrictions on those who now carry 
on this business, and who may have done so for a great length of time. (Hear, hear.) 
While therefore, on the one hand, the provisions of the Bill are stringent and precise, to the 
effect of prohibiting any one hereafter from becoming a Chemist and Druggist to make up 
prescriptions without having undergone an examination by competent examiners, it is 
likewise provided, that everyone who can obtain the certificate of any medical practitioners 
that he has actually and bond fide carried on the business of a Chemist and Druggist for 
making up of prescriptions before the month of January, when this Bill shall have 
become law and come into operation,—that he may on that certificate, and without fur¬ 
ther qualification, be entitled to be registered and to carry on business as heretofore. If 
the Bill be read a second time, and when it comes into committee, if it should be thought 
on the part of her Majesty’s Government that any restrictions of a severer character, 
that any other conditions should be imposed on existing Chemists and Druggists, it will 
be easy to introduce a clause to that effect. It will then undergo the consideration of the 
committee, and it will then be for the House to consider and determine whether or not it 
shall become law. In the meantime, all that we ask—all that I ask the assent of the 
House at present to—is the second reading of this Bill, with a view of securing the public 
against the carrying on of this business by utterly incompetent, unskilful, and altogether 
ignorant persons ; that no one hereafter shall be held to be eligible to carry on the trade 
without a certificate of examination, and consequent registration, to -which that certificate 
will entitle him. Now r I do not think that after having stated the length of time during 
which the Pharmaceutical Society has been in existence, the universal approbation in 
which it is held by the Chemists and Druggists of the country,—the class of persons who 
are to be dealt with by this Bill,—as well as by those who have come within the operations 
of that Society, but, above all, that department of her Majesty’s Government whose 
attention has been called to the subject, and in the discharge of its important public duty 
has found it necessary to protect those whose interest and safety are committed to their 
charge,—I mean the entire army of Great Britain,—that if the examinations have been 
