280 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
spirit of our institutions is averse to the establishment of 
privileged orders, and although the advantages would be 
decidedly in favor of that community, which was protected 
by the enactment of wholesome laws, prescribing the regu- 
lations under which this science should be practised, yet the 
conferring of an exclusive right to prepare and dispense 
medicines on those who alone are qualified for it, would be 
regarded as creating a monopoly for the benefit of a favored 
few. The spirit of open competition is allowed to run riot 
through the land, even in the exercise of a profession requir- 
ing equal skill, and a knowledge almost co-extensive with 
that expected in the education of a physician, and the health 
and lives of the community are exposed to the chances of fre- 
quent detriment, from the consequences which may result 
from an incompetent or ignorant discharge of the duties of a 
pharmaceutist. Poisons are openly and undisguisedly fur- 
nished to children and servants without fear or restraint, and 
no kind of inspection is practiced to determine officially that 
the medicines administered on the requisition of a physician, are 
either perfect of their kind, or prepared according to acknow- 
ledged authority. Is it nota strange, not to say a negligent over- 
sight, thatlegislators should direct a careful investigation into the 
quality of the most common articles of merchandize, and yet 
suflfer agents employed in the refined and delicate operations 
of medical practice, to pass without notice? And that the 
means of procuring the lasting illness or painful death of a 
valued member of a family, should be suffered to be dealt out 
without restraint, while the public press resounds with indig- 
nation at the practice of wearing weapons about the person? 
An open evident means of destroying life, against which the 
assaulted person may raise an arm in self-defence, arouses 
the clamors, and excites the interests of the whole community, 
while the silent, stealthy, insidious venom, against the opera- 
tion of which no care can guard, no caution escape, no skill avert, 
may be instilled into the cup of festivity, or mingled with the 
food which hospitality provides, without any legal enactment 
