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

Pharmacy Acts it is the sale of a poison by an unqualified person and not
the dispensing of it which constitutes an offence.‖ 194 In fact, the 1868 Act
states that, ―… it shall be unlawful for any person to sell or keep open shop
for retailing or dispensing or compounding poisons …‖ 195 It seems then that
the important concept is that of an open shop; providing the dispensing was
not done in a shop open to the public, it would not be illegal and this is
confirmed by Jackson. 196 A dispenser in a hospital or doctor‘s surgery could,
for instance, dispense poisons.
The Pharmacy Acts of 1868 and 1908 had been promulgated to deal
with the sale of poisons. The National Insurance Act (1911) was the first
Act of Parliament to restrict dispensing to chemists and druggists and then
only in respect of those prescriptions issued under the scheme. 197 This Act
although not directly concerned with the fortunes either of pharmacy, or of
the apothecaries‘ assistants, was to have a dramatic effect on both of them.
Initially, it raised great concerns within the Pharmaceutical Society, as the
membership feared that dispensing would be performed in dispensaries
created specially to meet the need and staffed by non-pharmacist
dispensers. 198 William Glynn-Jones had been the Secretary and Registrar
for the Pharmaceutical Society and was the Society‘s Parliamentary
Secretary and a Member of Parliament during the Bill‘s passage. He was
194
The National Insurance Bill (editorial), The Lancet, 1, (1911) 1362-1363 quoted in Hunt, „Echoing
down the years, The Tercentenary of the Rose Case‟, 195, note 12.
195
Pharmacy Act, 31 & 32 Victoria, Cap. XXI.
196
W. Jackson, „A Short History of Women and Pharmacy‟, Pharmaceutical Journal, 263, 7076, (1999)
1008-1009.
197
Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, fifth series, vol. XXV, 1 May-19 May 1911, cols. 610-677.
198
Hunt, „Echoing down the years, The Tercentenary of the Rose Case‟, 195.
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