€bitonal  department. 
The  Act  of  Pennsylvania  Eegulating  the  Sale  of  Poisons. — The 
attention  of  our  readers  is  directed  to  the  communication  at  page  117  in 
relation  to  the  law  on  the  sale  of  Poisons.  It  will  be  there  observed  that 
according  to  the  construction  of  the  law  by  a  member  of  the  Bar,  the  lia- 
bilities of  apothecaries  and  others  who  retail  poisons,  is  much  greater  than 
at  first  was  supposed,  and  that  difficulties  may  occur  in  which  the  apothe- 
cary, with  every  intention  of  doing  right,  may  get  himself  into  trouble.  We 
do  not  believe  this  mode  of  construing  the  law  would  be  upheld  by  a  jury, 
as  against  an  apothecary,  in  a  case  that  was  reasonably  within  the  usual 
action  of  physicians.  AYe  believe  every  apothecary  who  has  a  just  regard 
to  his  reputation  would  hesitate  to  put  up  the  prescription  of  a  well-known 
physician,  which,  from  its  deleterious  character,  might  do  mischief,  and 
therefore  he  would  be  much  less  likely  to  do  it  on  a  false  one  intended 
for  illegitimate  purposes.  The  law  does  not  say  that  the  dispenser  shall 
know  the  writer  of  the  prescription.  For  the  same  reason  that  we  do  not 
justify  an  apothecary  in  dispensing  a  genuine  prescription,  that  evidently 
conveys  the  probability  of  error  on  its  face,  we  do  justify  him  in  putting 
up  a  properly  drawn  prescription  that  conveys  the  probability  of  correct- 
ness, though  it  prove  to  be  not  written  by  a  graduate.  The  law  does  not 
define  who  is  a  physician.  The  same  power  that  made  the  law,  grants  the 
authority  under  which  Eclectics,  Homoeopaths,  Veterinary  Surgeons  and 
other  irregular  practitioners  practice  medicine,  and  it  would  hardly  intend 
to  confine  the  right  of  prescription-writing  to  the  regular  practitioners  of 
medicine. 
Further,  we  do  not  agree  with  Mr.  Bonsall  in  believing  that  the  law 
applies  to  the  regular  preparations  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  in  which  any  of 
the  five  prescribed  poisons  may  be  used,  as  Fowler's  Solution,  Laudanum, 
Syrup  of  Wild  Cherry  Bark,  Tincture  of  Nux  Vomica,  etc.,  else  it  would 
be  necessary  to  label  those  preparations  "  Poison  "  when  prescribed  by  a 
physician,  a  course  which  would  hardly  be  approved  by  the  Faculty.  In 
relation  to  the  meaning  of  the  expression,  "  personal  application  of  some 
respectable  inhabitant  of  full  age,"  we  feel  more  doubt — and  would  be  glad 
to  know  whether  the  law  really  means,  that  the  head  of  a  family  only  is 
an  eligible  person  for  a  purchaser  of  poison,  who  has  no  power  to  delegate 
his  right  to  a  servant,  however  well  known  the  latter  may  be  to  the  seller 
of  the  poison.    If  this  be  so,  the  apothecary  should  know  it — because  by 
