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241
[1908
Liniment of Soap.—An important magisterial decision which was
dealt with very fully in the report (p. 19) of the Medical Officer
of Health for the second quarter of the year, decided that when
soap liniment is demanded by a customer he must be supplied with
that article made according to the formula of the British Pharmacopa:ia,
or in other words, that it must be made with rectified spirit, and
not with methylated spirit. It has, unfortunately, been the practice,
which the evidence showed was much more extensive than had been suspected,
for druggists, especially those doing business in the poorer neighbourhoods, to
compound this medicine with methylated spirit. It was pleaded that there
was a commercial standard as well as a pharmacopaeal standard for this
article; but the Magistrate held that, "the only answer he could give upon
the evidence is this, that the facts are that there is no commercial standard for
liniment of soap different from the British Pharmacopaeia." He also quoted
the words of the Lord Chief Justice, when the case was before the Court of
Appeal on the point that the Magistrate had refused to hear evidence as to the
existence of a commercial standard, who said: "It was liniment of soap
improperly compounded, and that they (the appellants) attempted to sell under
another name what they had no right to sell under that name, viz., they
attempted to sell methylated spirits under the name of liniment of soap, when
it was not liniment of soap according to the proper meaning of that word."
The Magistrate fined the defendants five pounds, and awarded costs to the
amount of sixty-five guineas.
This case, which consumed a great deal of time and must have cost the
defendants a great deal of money, for witnesses were brought to London from
distant parts of the country, would never have arisen if the defendants
had labelled their liniment—as they ought to have done—" soap liniment
—methylated,"or "methylated liniment of soap," or in such a manner that the
purchaser would be made aware that he was purchasing an article other than
that laid down in the British Pharmacopaeia. It was impossible for your Public
Health Committee to refrain from prosecuting in this case, for by so doing
they would have opened the door to a wide infraction of the formulae prescribed
by the British Pharmacopaeia for the compounding of many medicines, because
it would have been a tacit admission that it was not authoritative or binding on
chemists and druggists. Indeed during the trial at least one witness went so
far as to assert that it was only compiled as a guide for medical men in writing
their prescriptions.
Blaud's Pills.—Another most important conviction was that of
the proprietors of a large drug store, who were fined £50 and
£10 10s. costs, in which the defendants who had sold Blaud's Pills
deficient in Ferrous Carbonate to the extent of 78.5 per cent., endeavoured
to excuse themselves on the ground that it was not a preparation