CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS, LAIVS RELATLNG TO. Under the head Apothecary (q.v.) will be found the distinction between that profession and the kindred one of pharmaceutical chemist. The pharmaceutical society of Great Britain, founded in 1841 for raising the standard of efficiency in the practice of dispensing and compounding drugs, was incorporated by royal charter in 1843. An act was passed in 1852 defining the qualifications of pharmaceutical chemists, and the society's powers for examining and granting qualifying certificates. The pharmacy act of 1868, referred to below, still further defines its duties and privileges. As in the case of medical practitioners, there is no penalty for mere practice; but the assumption of the specific title named in the act is punishable by fine. The legislature presumes that certificates obtained by examination are evidence of efficient education, but that the freedom of engaging in business ought not to be interfered with; and that the right of the subject to consult whom he chooses, or to buy drugs from whom he will, must be respected. This seems a :sound view.
Serious mistakes, such as the substitution of one medicine for another, to the injury of the purchaser, are punishable by law, both in the unqualified and in the ease of those qualified under the act. The public also derives great and increasing security in this
and in all other departments of human enterprise, from the improving effect of free com petition. The operation of the act was simply that of indicating to the public, by a name or title, a class of druggists possessing a higher education. In 1868 it was deemed necessary, owing to the frequent evils arising from the facility of obtaining poisons, to enact that no person should sell, or keep open shop for selling poisons, or assume or use the title of chemist or druggist or pharmacist, unless lie be registered under the act 31 and 32 Viet. c. 121, amended by 32 and 33 Viet. c. 117, and conform to the regulations as to sale of poisons. All persons who in 1868 carried on the business of chemists and druggists, and their apprentices and assistants, were entitled to be registered. The register of chemists and druggists under this act now contains the names of all qualified persons in Great Britain.