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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
possess the right of visitation, and that this right has been 
long abandoned by the latter college, and is practised by the 
former with no material good effect. But it would be an 
easy matter to show that a College of Physicians is not the 
proper body with which to entrust so peculiar a duty; and in 
point of fact, though there were no other reasons for failure, 
it is quite sufficient to entail disappointment and ill success, 
that such a body cannot be expected to produce a competent 
number of individuals of adequate practical skill. This line 
of argument, moreover, is very effectually answered by refer- 
ring to the experience of France and Germany, where the 
task of visiting shops is lodged in the hands of the most emi- 
ment members of the Pharmaceutic Colleges, and where the 
inspections are consequently understood to be made with 
regularity, and vigor, and excellent effect. 
In the fourth place, some might think that an effectual 
check against many adulterations would be found in similar 
visitations of the warehouses of wholesale druggists; which 
might be instituted the more easily, and carried on the more 
efficiently, that these establishments are few in number and 
confined to a few large towns. But insuperable obstacles ex- 
ist to such a measure. It would be considered invidious to 
subject individuals to the superintendence of a body which it 
could scarely be any part of their interest to join as members. 
Many wholesale druggists make preparations, both chemical 
and galenical, the processes and apparatus for which they are en- 
titled to keep secret. Most of them supply to other trades 
besides retail druggists a great variety of drugs; which, for 
any other purpose except medicinal use, may be of inferior 
quality, without material injury to the public, and which, 
therefore, it would be impossible to prevent, them from vending 
in such a state. Besides, while an inspection of wholesale 
warehouses would prove but a trifling check on retailers, it 
would appear from wmat was formerly stated, that an effectual 
visitation of the retail shops, and an improved education of 
retailers, would soon extinguish in a great measure on the 
part of wholesale dealers the reasons which at present exist for 
