tfzMtorial ^department 
Our readers will notice the report of Dr. Edwards on the working 
of the Law against the admission of adulterated and deteriorated drugs 
and chemicals, in the contents of this number. We cannot avoid 
feelings of gratulation in observing the success which has thus far 
attended this novel experiment, and hope that it augurs favourably for 
the introduction of further reforms in relation, not merely to the impor- 
tation of bad drugs from foreign parts ; but to their existence and sale 
within the limits of our oWn country. The general government has 
nobly done its part — it remains for the State legislatures and Execu- 
tives to look into this important subject and ascertain what there is for 
them to do, that will benefit the public interests over which they are 
appointed to watch. We are fully impressed with the grave difficulties 
that present themselves in an approach to the reformation hinted at. 
The spirit of free trade which pervades our people, and which induces 
a jealous watchfulness over every movement that in the slightest degree 
really or apparently invades their assumed rights, is in opposition to any 
laws which tend to place the practice of Pharmacy exclusively in the 
hands of the regularly educated. It is well known that the existing 
laws relative to the practice of Medicine have but little influence in 
frowning down the inroads of quackery; empirics flourish, become 
wealthy, and occupy positions of respectability in public opinion; and 
so great is the tendency in the general mind to be cured in a mar- 
vellous manner, that it has been remarked that those regular practi- 
tioners who have not scrupled to humour this weak side of the com- 
munity, have succeeded far more rapidly in acquiring a practice, and 
consequent wealth, than their more conscientious brethren. 
It will be a source of deep mortification to the friends of medical 
reform, if the vile practice of drug adulteration, which we have sup- 
posed to be chiefly confined to the foreign trade, shall now flourish 
within our own limits, — that the skill and imitativeness proverbially 
characteristic of the Anglo-American shall be turned to the base pur- 
poses of fraud in drugs. There are no other means of guarding 
against this nefarious practice, save those that arise from confining 
the distribution of drugs to the consumer, in the hands of the qualified; 
so long as herbalists, grocers, and general store keepers can vend not 
only drugs, but active and important pharmaceutical preparations, of 
whose composition and strength they are ignorant, and of whose 
qualities they are unable to judge, there is a ready market for adultera- 
tions. The phrase ^good enough for the West," will be replaced by 
