MEDICAL MURDER.
ANOTHER sacrifice has been offered up on the altar of ignorance and pedantry. An apothecary, giving his dirty boy instructions as
to the making up a medicine, wrote hyosc. : the aproned sage mistook these hieroglyphics for ac...hydroc.: it may be small distinction on paper, but it makes the difference of ease and agony in a 'sick room—of life and death. Now, who should be whipped at the cart-tail ?—a stupid boy, put upon a duty he is incompetent to fill, and who, indeed, has only been taught to bear a burden and erten bread and cheese and' porter in the interyals, between serving bees-wax and jalap; or that member of the Apothecaries Company who goes about seeking whom be may cure, and when be has got a victim, turns, him or her over to his dirty shop-boy to kill? The mistakes that tuurder, are not the only ones that occur, though they alone make a noise. Medicines vary in almost every shop in London, and yet it is expected that preseriptions should always produce the same effect. Many a disease is aggravated by the best prescription. If the master deals with ready-moneys he gets good drugs: as he approaches bankruptcy, the patients served from his shop get worse, and nobody can tell why. He may have the best drugs in the world, and the prettiest shop, but if he permits a lad to deal with them who does not know -one drawer from another, or whose wits are going a-woolgatheiing, las mentation and wo may be carried from-house to houses and yet no one suspect that the cause of all is the dirty little. boy, behind the counter dreaming of the delights of "pitch and toss.
No prescription ought to be written in abbreviation. No person ought to be permitted to make one up who has not passed an examination in drugs. Some lesser degree thaw that qualifying for practice should be instituted, and the Apothecaries imitate the Universities and establish a little-go. A prudent man, then, seeing his prescription in the hands of a youth, would de- mand a sight of his certificate. No prudent person should send a servant to an apothecary's shop. Conversation is apt to arise across the counter; and while the young gentleman is bandying talk, lie is also handling poison,
If, at this moment, a scientific capitalist wished. to quadruple his fortune, he would open an establishment at the 'West End of the town, similar to Apothecaries Hall, and regulate it by published forms such as these— That no person should stand behind his counter who had not passed and was entitled to practice :
That all medicines vended in the shop should be compounded or prepared from the first quality of drugs imported : That he invited all professional men to inspect his laboratory at any hour they choose : That on payment of a shilling, any of the public should, within certain hours of the day, be admitted to witness the very curious and interesting preparation of the drugs in his manufactory. There is no sight more worthy of attention than the laboratory of Apothecaries Hall.
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