An Address Delivered in Section of Psychology
Authors: J. A. Eames
Journal: BMJ (1879)

August I6, I879.to make the requisite provision for the regulation of pharmacy.The Apothecaries' Company ofLondon, which, in the natural order ofthings, should have supplied pharmaceutists to England, were forced from (I regret to say) the want of public spirit of the Royal College of Physicians, to become a corporation for granting licenses to practise medicine.The Irish Apothecaries' Company, which was founded solely for the supply of pharmaceutists, followed, without the same excuse, the ex- ample of its elder sister, and became a quasi medical authority.The position occupied by these corporations retarded the establishment of a set of properly qualified compounding and dispensing pharmaceutists, and thus drove the general practitioners, especially in the country, to compound and dispense the medicines for their own patients.The passing of the Pharmacy Acts for Great Britain and for Ireland (Pharmacy Act (Ireland), I875, 38 and 39 Vic., cap.57) has, to a large extent, removed the necessity for practitioners dispensing medicines ; and in a very short time the Act, if properly worked and if fully availed of by the members of our profession, should completely remove the stigma of retail trading from the practitioners of medicine in the United Kingdom.At the same time, it is the duty of the profession, and especially of this Association, to jealously guard against the possibility of the establishment of a new race of quacks in the persons of " counter practitioners".The Association, through its Parliamentary Bills Committee, supported the Pharmacy Bill of i868, but unfortunately their advice was not sufficiently taken; and an Amending Act had to be passed in the following year, and still the regulation of pharmacy is not in a satisfactory condition.(Pharmacy Acts of I868 and I869.)At the Oxford meeting of the Association in I868, the Parliamentary Bills Committee reported concerning the Pharmacy Bill, I868, and stated that they had pressed important amendments: " I.That the schedule of poisons and the examination of chemists and druggists should be placed under the supervision of the General Medical Council rather than of the Privy Council; 2. The following addition to Clause xvi, prohibitory df medical practice by chemists: 'And it shall not be lawful for any person registered under this Act to prescribe for any patient, or undertake the treatment of disease, or in any way assume to act as a medical practitioner; and any chemist or druggist so offendingshall, on summary conviction, forfeit or pay a sum not 'xceeding £5'.Instead of this, the following clause, proposed by the General Medical Council, was adopted: 'Provided always that registration under this Act shall not entitle any person so registered to practise medicine or surgery, or any branch of medicine or surgery'; which legally amounts to no prohibition at all; 3. A clause to stop the sale of patent, quack, or any other secret remedies, viz., 'that no patent, quack, or secret medicine should be sold, under a penalty of £20, unless a sworn certificate of its composition were lodged with the Registrar under this Act'."(BRIT.MED.JOUR