The General Apothecaries Company, (limited).

  • General Apothecaries Company (London, England)
Date:
[1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The General Apothecaries Company, (limited). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    From the “Royal Leamington Spa Courier,” October \%th. Among the thousand and one projects which the Limited Liability Act has brought forward, one has just been started in London, and which 1 understand proposes to extend its operations throughout the provinces, for preparing and dispensing pure and unadulterated dnigs. At the present moment, following immediately upon the exposures wliich the Lancet and the Parliamentary Committee on adulterations have made, it would be next to impossible for such a scheme to fail, if honestly and systematically cai*ried out. The promoters of this scheme, which is launched under the title of the General Apothecaries’ Company, are men of character in the medical profession; one of them. Dr. Gai’dner, I recollect as a gentleman who laboiu-ed, some years ago, zealously and most effectually in the establishment of the College of Chemistry, an institution which is now thriving, and which has been a great service to medicinal science and to the arts. The object of this Company is, according to the explanations given by its projectors at a public inspection of their laboratory, which took place on Wednesday, to prepare and sell medecines without adulteration or substitution, to follow the orders of the Colleges, in all preparations, to keep the profession au fait in all discoveries, and to put new life and vigour into the science of medicine. One can scarcely conceive a more valuable boon to society than such an institution, and, seeing how largely medicine, in some shape or other, enters into the every day life and economy of every family, the pecuniary results of the projeet must be—always supposing that it is conducted by men of business, as well as men of medical ability—enormous. From the “Sunday Times” of October I9th, 1856. Death in the Drugs.—It would seem that we must eschew not merely eating and drinking, but physic also, if we would escape the perils of poison. Diseased meats and adulterated condiments, simulated wines, and viti'iohsed liquors, dyed teas, and doctored coffee—whatever we take in the shape of food or refreshment—if not inherently bad and deleterious, is, in all probability, rendered so by artificial means; and then, to cap the chmax of our misery, the veiy drugs we are driven to the use of, by the taking of these injurious things into our stomachs, are, in a great majority of cases, it seems, no more to be depended upon than the things which demand them as correctives. We are, indeed, in a plight most miserable : for no caution or vigilance we can individually exercise will suffice to protect us against the most deadly assaults on our stomachs. Sometimes the worst things assume the most se- ductive appearance, and, in almost all cases, the spvuious and the genuine are so much alike as to deceive even the best instructed and most familiar with the commodity. We are at last promised some protection in the case of drags, so that when obhged to resort to the physic bottle to obtain relief from some one of the many natural or induced ills which flesh is heir to, we may take the nauseous potion, with, at least, the satisfaction of knowing that it is what it purports to be, and not something else, which, if it do not increase the malady, will certainly fail to remove it. “ The General Apothecaries’ Company,” which has just opened its hall and laboratories in Bemers-street, if it but conscientiously carry out the promises it now makes, will rank amongst the philanthropic institutions of the day. “ The prepa- ration of medicines,” they say, “ has been entinsted to a class of peroons, who, whatever may be their merits in other respects, make no pretension to understand the treatment of diseases, and who, according to unquestionable testimony, either wilfully or negligently sell, or employ in the preparation of prescriptions, spiu’ious or adulterated drugs. They plead, indeed, that they are themselves imjiosed upon by others. But this is beside the question. If, as many physicians have testified, when a prescription is >vntten, it is a