252  Pharmacy  Laws  and  Legislation.  {AmM£y^9Poiarm' 
charge  is  not  for  the  paper  or  material  used,  but  for  his  professional 
services. 
"  Technical  words,  when  used  in  referring  to  a  technical  subject,, 
are  to  be  given  the  meaning  which  they  have  when  applied  to  the 
particular  art  or  science  with  reference  to  which  they  are  used,  i.  e.t 
their  technical  meaning.  So  an  act  relating  to  commerce  is  inter- 
preted according  to  the  vocabulary  of  merchants,  and  it  naturally 
follows  that  an  act  relating  to  druggists  and  physicians  must  be  in- 
terpreted according  to  their  vocabulary.    (23  Ency.  of  Law,  324.) 
"  In  the  vocabulary  of  druggists  this  was  clearly  not  a  sale,  but 
was  a  dispensing,  and  when  a  medicine  is  composed  of  several  in- 
gredients it  is  a  compounding. 
"  In  the  opinion  of  the  court  this  was  not  a  sale  of  any  drug  or 
chemical  or  poison  within  the  meaning  of  Section  4354-64,  and  the 
defendant  is  accordingly  discharged." 
As  some  higher  courts  have  construed  the  subject  differently  in 
similar  cases,  it  will  be  the  part  of  wisdom  of  Ohio  pharmacists  to 
see  that  at  the  next  session  of  the  Legislature  the  poison  statute  is 
amended  so  as  to  remove  all  chance  for  ambiguity. 
PRACTICE  OF  MEDICINE  DEFINED. 
The  Council  of  the  Ontario  Medical  Society  employed  an' informer 
to  detect  cases  of  counter  prescribing,  and  on  the  evidence  thus 
procured  brought  cases  against  several  druggists,  one  of  them  being 
King  vs.  Lee  and  others.  The  magistrate  deciding  against  the  de- 
fendants, an  appeal  was  taken  before  Judge  McDougall,  who 
reversed  the  magistrate's  decision  with  costs  upon  the  prosecution. 
The  main  points  of  Judge  McDougall's  opinion  are  as  'ollows : 
"  The  conviction  only  sets  out  one  act  as  occurring  on  a  named 
day.  I  have  already  discussed  very  fully  in  Reg.  vs.  Whalen  (not 
reported)  what  must  be  shown  to  amount  to  a  practising  of  medi- 
cine. The  single  act  of  prescribing  medicine  to  one  person  on  one  day 
will  not  amount  to  a  practising  of  medicine.  The  conviction  charges 
that  the  defendant,  on  the  date  named  in  the  conviction,  prescribed 
for  Minnie  Warring  and  others  contrary,  etc.  Upon  looking  at  the 
testimony  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  defendant  on  that  day  or  at  any  prior 
date  having  prescribed  for  any  one.  Evidence  of  acts  of  practising 
antecedent  to  the  date  named  in  the  conviction  might,  no  doubt,  be 
given  to  establish  a  practising,  and  possibly  evidence  of  acts  of  prac- 
