The Schedule.
Part L—Arsenic and its preparations; Prussic Acid; Cyanides of Potassium and all metallic Cyanides ; Strychnine and all poisonous vegetable Alkaloids and other Salts ; Aconite, Aconitine, and their preparations ; Emetic Tartar ; Corrosive Sublimate ; Cantharides ; Savin and its Oil ; Ergot of Rye and its preparations. Preparations of Atropine ; Cyanide of Potassium and of all metallic Cyanides ; Prussic Acid and Strychnine. Part IL—Oxalic Acid ; Chloroform ; Belladonna and its preparations ; Essential Oil of Almonds unless deprived of its Prussic Acid; Opium and all preparations of Opium or of Poppies ; Ammoniated Mercury ; Chloral Hydrate ; Compounds con taining any poison within the Act, intended for destruction of vermin ; Nux Vomica and all its preparations ; Preparations of Corrosive Sublimate and Morphine ; Red Oxide of Mercury ; Tincture of Cantharides and all vesi eating liquid preparations of Cantharides.
Committee on amendment of the law by which traders other than chemists are now allowed, if licensed by the local authorities, to deal in poisonous substances used in agriculture and horticulture is due to the report of the Committee of Poisons appointed in 1902. This committee, as a result of its deliberations, came to the conclusion that some relaxation of the Pharmacy Act 'could be conceded without undue risk to human life.
Prosecution qf unregistered sellers of poison.—Under the law as it then stood, certain poisons and poisonous compounds (other than licittid carbolic acid for sheepwash or other agricultural or horticultural purpose) could not be legally retailed except by a registered chemist, and the Pharmaceutical Society was charged with the duty of proceeding- against unauthorised vendors. The execu tion of this duty, in the opinion of the committee, had been characterised by considerable uncertainty and irregularity, because the Society had no regular machinery for detecting the sale of poisons by unregistered persons. And further, the Society could only exercise its powers upon voluntary inthrmation and by extemporised means, which rendered the working of the restrictive provisions the reverse of uniform. For instance, in the West-Midland district of England, the sale by unregistered persons of poisons used in agriculture and horticulture had been completely stopped in consequence of successful prosecutions by the Society. In part of Kent it had been stopped temporarily ; wherea.s in many
parts of Scotland and the North of England it was conducted by such persons with impunity. It followed from this that the effect of the 749 prosecutions undertaken by the Society during the six years 1896-1901, and of the numerous cases in which penalties were exacted without prosecution, had been very un equally felt ; for while the law had been enforced in some districts it had been wholly inoperative in others. The committee were therefiffe of opinion that the obligation laid upon the Society was unduly onerous, seeing that even the limited extent to which they had taken action under it had imolved them in a net loss beyond the sums received as penalties.
Inconvenience to farmers and gardeners.—Ineouvenienee bad becn experienced by farmers and gardeners, in the N leW of the committee, owing to the restriction of the sale of poisonous material to registered chemists in districts where there was no such qualified tradesman within easy reach. This inconvenience would have amounted to a very serious interference with legitimate industry had the law been universally put in effect. For example, in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, where sheep-thrining is the principal business of agriculture, fitrmers are sometimes upwards of fifty miles distant from the nearest registered chemist, and the sale of sheep-dips was regularly' carried on by- ironmongers and other traders in contravention of the statute. As to Kent, a nurseryman and florist gave evidence as to the extreme inconvenience caused to cultivators when, owing to the successful prosecution of a firm of seedsmen, the sale of weed-killers and insecticides was discontinued by nurserymen. He alleged that in h.n'ticulture there were numerous small cultivators and amateurs who would use these materials if they could get them, to the advantage of their greenhouses and gardens, but that chemists did not. know what to recommend, whereas the nurserymen had knowledge of the proper remedies and ought to be in a position to supply them.