GJMtorial department. 
Patent Medicine Tax. — The period is approaching when the rights 
and feelings of those pharmaceutists who sacrifice their pecuniary interest 
in discountenancing quackery, will be again infringed by the enforce- 
ment of this odious tax. The larger number of apothecaries are classed 
in the five dollar list, and should they happen to overlook the time when it 
is legally to be paid, some two or three dollars are tacked on in the shape of 
costs. We think this a fair case for the action of the Trustees of the College 
of Pharmacy, whose members are presumed to act up to the principles of 
the Code of Ethics, which takes high ground on the subject of secret formu- 
lae. We have long believed that if the proper measures were taken to inves- 
tigate the unjust working of this law, by legal process, many who now suffer 
would be relieved, and the expense of the investigation would be more than 
borne by one year's tax. 
We have read the following communication on this subject from our friend 
Alfred B. Taylor, (than whom we know of no one more sedulous in avoid- 
ing the sale of nostrums,) with great satisfaction, and we believe it presents 
the misconstruction of the law in a clearer light than it has heretofore been 
exposed. 
Mr. Editor: — In your " Editorial Department" for July, 1850, you made 
a few remarks on the " Patent Medicine Tax," (recently enacted by the 
State Legislature,) and showed the injustice to those " druggists who feel a 
desire to discourage quackery and act up to their profession by refusing to 
sell secret medicines in general," of requiring them by an unreasonable ap- 
plication of the law, to pay the tax for selling "preparations made by secret 
formulae, as Henry's and Husband's Magnesia, M'Munn's Elixir, and others 
prescribed by physicians." 
As the correct understanding of the legal liability is a matter of conside- 
rable interest to the Druggist, and as the law itself has not yet been pub- 
lished (I believe) in the " Journal," it is here subjoined with a few com- 
ments. 
Extract from the Act of 10th April, 1849. 
Sec. xxv. — In addition to the license now required by law to bo taken out 
by venders of merchandise, all manufacturers, venders, agents, or other 
persons, (except regular apothecaries for the sale of simple medicines, the 
prescriptions of physicians, and the compounds of the Pharmacopoeia, and 
the several Dispensatories of the United States,) engaged in the manufacture 
or sale of any nostrums, medical compounds, or patent medicines, — whether 
