4 
RECENT PROSECUTIONS EOR SELLING METHYLATED SPIRIT. 
equine stomach. The public health was not of sufficient importance to move 
the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, it was not in their keeping; happily the 
public purse is, and when the tribute to that purse is lessened or endangered by 
the use of methylated “ Brandee ” or spirit of peppermint, they show a wonder¬ 
ful alacrity for the public good, which will go far, we hope, to abate the nuisance. 
AVe have reason to believe that most stringent measures will be taken imme¬ 
diately to restrict the use of methylated spirit to the purposes for which it was 
originally intended ; purposes in which the presence of naphtha is entirely un¬ 
objectionable, and cheap spirit a great boon to the consumer. 
Not very long since, a method of purifying this spirit, by freeing it from 
naphtha, was patented; but an Act was last year passed to bring the workers 
of the patent at once under the rectifier’s licence, and the cleaned spirit con¬ 
sequently under duty again. At the same time there has been evidence of a 
desire, on the part of Government, to make the advantages of cheap spirit for 
its proper uses as widely available as possible, to bring it within reach of small 
as well as large consumers, and a licence to sell it in quantities not exceeding a 
gallon may be obtained for two guineas. 
AVe have always regarded this licence as a great relief to chemists, to whom 
the public will persist in applying for spirit of wine for all purposes whatsoever, 
and often take offence if referred to a gin-shop to obtain it. 
It would be well if the Legislature would grant the same qualified permission 
to chemists to sell rectified spirit for medicinal purposes, and all purposes save 
those of beverage, as they have granted for the sale of methylated spirit for its 
purposes; this will probably be done when chemists are, as we hope before long 
they will be, a registered body. 
In referring to these prosecutions, while we are bound to uphold the Board 
of Inland Revenue in its efforts to repress frauds on the public, which act most 
injuriously also on the honest Pharmaceutist who desires to carry out the 
Pharmacopoeia in its integrity, we are by no means insensible to the annoyances 
and inconveniences which may arise, and indeed have arisen, to members of our 
trade. Chemists are peculiarly open to these annoyances ; although entirely 0]3- 
posed to substituting methylated for rectified spirit in medicinal preparations, they 
are compelled, in compounding, to use the articles designated by a prescription 
or order; and whether these articles are excisable or not, no licence has ever been, 
or could in justice be, required for their employment. Informers are confessed^ 
an unscrupulous class. It is their business to find offenders, and very often 
to make them; they are expert in baiting traps and making pit-falls, there¬ 
fore we would caution our readers to be wary of their devices. If a chemist 
has no licence to sell methylated spirit, he may, without one, supply “ finish,” 
a preparation containing one ounce of gum shellac in a gallon of methylated 
spirit. The special permission to do that was granted by the excise before the 
retail licence for methylated spirit was established; and a chemist not keeping 
methylated spirit may suggest finish as a substitute and sell it mixed or unmixed; 
he may declare it to his customer, label it, and honestly believe it to be “ finish.” 
But there have been cases in which this has not availed. It would seem that 
the makers of the article have grown careless, sometimes putting an insufficient 
quantity, and sometimes omitting altogether the shellac. In one instance the 
offender was in a position to prove that he had ordered “ finish ; ” the article sent 
to him was invoiced as “ finish,” and received into his stock as such. In good 
faith he sold and labelled it accordingly ; but the analytical chemist at Somerset 
House could find no trace of resin in it, and consequently a worthy member of 
our Society, whose high character in the trade places him above suspicion, has 
been mulcted in a pecuniary penalty, and worse than that, branded with the 
stigma of an excise conviction. 
