Discursory thoughts, &c : disputing the constructions of His Majesty's hon. commissioners and crown lawyers, relative to the medicine and horse acts : to which are added, the opinions and resolutions of the farmers in Scotland ... with remarks on the late trials concerning the Medicine Act / by Francis Spilsbury.

  • Spilsbury, Francis.
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discursory thoughts, &c : disputing the constructions of His Majesty's hon. commissioners and crown lawyers, relative to the medicine and horse acts : to which are added, the opinions and resolutions of the farmers in Scotland ... with remarks on the late trials concerning the Medicine Act / by Francis Spilsbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    declares the apothecary free ; yet if he fells a pa- tent medicine, the Commiffioners fay, you mud fell a ftamp with it. How is this reconcileable to reafon, or the words of the act ? Does not this circumflance prove by the Commiffioners conduct, the act is pointed againft patent medi- cines only, and all thofe who have any thing to do with them ? I will add, juftly too, if the apothecary, whom the act declares exempt, is to put a ftamp on a patent medicine he fells, then is the bookfeller free, becaufe he has not fold a patent medicine to one perfon. It mud: appear very ftrange, not to fay ridiculous, that one perfon called a druggift is allowed by the act and the Commiffioners conftruction of it, to fell paints, colours, fnuffs, tobacco, &c. and his Daffy's Elixir without a ftamp ; whilfl the ftationer, becaufe he has fold a book, he is to be deprived of felling thofe articles as ufual, and is ordered to fix a ftamp to his medicines, which cannot fail acting as a fcare-crow to drive his cuftomers to another mop, where this molt unexampled, heavy fine is not demanded. What fault has printers and bookfellers done more than any other fubjects, as thus to be fo hardly dealt with ?—Have they no claim on royal favour ? Will his Majefty patro- nize fuch conftructions ? Has the King profcribed them, and figned fuch an act, or has the Legifla- ture transferred fuch difcretionary powers to any officers of the crown ? I have always differed in opinion, and oppofed thefe (as I conceived) arbitrary, u nj u ft i liable, miftaken proceedings in the fervants of the pub- lic, even before the act took place ; on which B account