A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

arsenic. 3 The control of the availability of poisons was to affect the
development of pharmacy as a profession.
There was also concern about the variation in standards of
qualification of those offering medical assistance to the sick. These concerns
coincided with a desire on the part of medical practitioners to see the formal
establishment of a profession, with registration of practitioners regulated by
law and restricted to those appropriately qualified. There existed amongst
the chemists and druggists also a similar wish to see the practice of
pharmacy restricted to those who were properly qualified. 4 Legislation to
restrict entry to the medical and pharmaceutical professions to those who
were duly qualified inevitably disadvantaged the unqualified practitioners
of medicine and pharmacy. Similarly, restrictions on the supply of arsenic
were unpopular with those that had previously sold it freely through all
manner of outlets. 5 Such actions interfered with a long-standing tradition of
the supremacy of free trade in the country. 6 But the public and government
were beginning to accept that the benefits of free trade were going to have to
be restricted in exchange for improved public safety. Nonetheless, there
were those who would have put their own interest ahead of the public good.
One such was Mr H. Cannell, who gave evidence to a Departmental
Committee looking into the use of poisons. 7
3
Bartrip, „A “Pennurth of Arsenic for Rat Poison”‟, 58-59.
4
„The Proposed New Pharmacy Bill‟, Pharmaceutical Journal, series 2, 6, 6, (Dec. 1864) 298-299.
5
Watson, Poisoned Lives, pp. 206-207.
6
A. Wootton, „Ideal Pharmacy Law‟, Pharmaceutical Journal, series 4, 74, 20, (1 Apr. 1905) 479.
7
Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Lord President of the Council regarding
Schedule A to the Pharmacy Act, 1868 (25 Nov. 1902), p 110.
213