MISCELLANY. 
Toxicology. — Although Toxicology is not numbered among the educa- 
tional objects of the Pharmaceutical Society, yet a knowledge of the im- 
portant matter embraced in its consideration, appears to be so necessary 
to the Pharmaceutical Chemist, that we shall include an occasional no- 
tice of it in our pages. 
We believe the Council were induced to omit toxicology in the list of 
subjects upon which the qualification of the Members of the Society should 
be tested, merely from a fear of appearing to grasp at too much, and 
trenching in any way upon the peculiar province of the medical practi- 
tioner. But, while we fully appreciate these motives, we still continue 
of the opinion we have always entertained, that a practical acquaintance 
with the properties and modes of operation of poisons, together with their 
proper antidotes and means of detection, are legitimate and essential ac- 
quirements for the fully qualified Pharmaceutical Chemist. 
As a retailer of drugs, it is important that he should possess a well 
grounded knowledge of the properties of those substances, which exer- 
cise a destructive influence upon human life. Almost all the substances 
of this description under the name of Poisons, which pass into the hands 
of the public, do so through the medium of the retail Chemist, and he is 
held accountable for the exercise of due caution in supplying them. It is 
evident, therefore, that he ought to be intimately acquainted with the 
properties of these bodies ; for upon such an acquaintance only can judi- 
cious precautions be founded. 
In considering the position of the dispenser of medicines in relation to 
the physician and to the patient, the importance of his being able to de- 
tect any accidental error in a prescription, and thus to prevent the evil 
consequeuces that might otherwise result, is doubted by none. In order 
to perform this duty, he mu3t be acquainted with Toxicology ; he is, in 
most cases, ignorant of the particular symptoms of the disease, to which 
the remedy is directed; he presumes not to form a judgment as to what, 
within the limits of Therapeutics, should be the dose administered, but 
the moment the intended remedy outsteps these limits, it becomes his 
province, and indeed his especial duty, to consider the probable effect, 
and by referring to the prescriber to prevent the occurrence of injury. 
The public advantage and safety then require a knowledge of Toxico- 
logy in the Pharmaceutical Chemist, which knowledge would not imply 
any departure from his legitimate province. 
