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47 [1923
have either been previously warned or the offence is considered to have been deliberate or
of too serious a character to enable the Public Health Committee to refrain from bringing
action.
There is an unceasing change in the proprietorship of small businesses. The taking
on of the sale of milk—very frequently only a few pints are sold daily—is with the idea
that a customer may buy something else. It has frequently been pointed out to these
people the risk they run in taking on a business they do not understand, and they are told
that their milk may be sampled at any time. The small shopkeepers in the majority of
cases have not familiarised themselves with their duty under the Butter and Margarine
Acts.
Very numerous first warnings were given to this class of trader during the year.
DISPENSING OF PRESCRIPTIONS.
A commencement had been made with the sampling of prescriptions towards the close
of the previous year (1922) and the results were such that it was found necessary to continue
the sampling. Four prescriptions had been sampled, as stated, towards the end of the year,
two of these being found inaccurate, one being deficient 11.2 per cent, in bromide of potash
and 5.2 per cent, in spirit of sal volatile, and the other, a simple solution of sodium salicylate,
was 10.8 per cent, deficient. The same prescriptions were utilised again at the beginning
of the year, the object being to gain some general idea as to the relative care taken in
dispensing an ordinary prescription. The reason of the results obtained, whether due
to striking a series of shops where dispensing was generally done indifferently, or to the
particular prescription being entrusted by the proprietor to apparently careless assistants,
cannot of course be definitely ascertained. The relatively large number of cases in which
the prescription was inaccurately dispensed was certainly no mere accident.
The Medical Officer of Health drew attention to the matter in "The Lancet" at the
point when 17 prescriptions, including those of the previous year, had been taken, a large
number of these having fallen short of accuracy. This letter in "The Lancet" was quoted
by a Sunday newspaper, and resulted in the matter receiving very considerable attention
from the public press.
Attention had previously been drawn to inaccurate dispensing through the analyses
carried out by the Corporation of the City of London and the Metropolitan Borough of
Stepney. The Public Analyst of Stepney had stated to the press that from January to
September, 1922, he analysed 35 prescriptions, and certified 15 as " adulterated."
The Public Health Committee authorised the Medical Officer of Health to offer the
Pharmaceutical Society facilities for investigating the cases decided by the Courts. The
attitude taken by the press was unfortunate, as the public might have applied the strictures
therein to all chemists, and although the proportion of inaccuracies was a large one, it was
not quite fair that every chemist should be "pilloried."
The press propaganda brought out an expression of opinion from one Analyst that the
deficiency was usually in the more expensive drugs, but this has not been our experience
in Islington, where the errors seem to be more of the nature of carelessness in dispensing.
Viewed from the requirements of the Food and Drugs Acts, it was rather disconcerting to