§ MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee or Council on Education whether the attention of the Privy Council has been draw to the evidence and verdict given at an inquest held at Heaton Norris on 9th January 1899, from which it appears that a mistake by a doctor's unqualified dispenser resulted in the patient's death; and whether, seeing that, notwithstanding that the Pharmacy Act enacts that sellers of poison must possess a qualification, it is not illegal for doctors to employ any class of unqualified persons to dispense medicines, however danger—ous or poisonous, the Government will take steps to ensure that medicines containing poisons shall only be dispensed by those holding either medical or pharmaceutical qualification?
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE: COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST Cambridge University)The answer to the first paragraph of the Question is in the affirmative, and the Privy Council have been in communication with the General Medical Council on the subject. The Executive Committee of that body, while admitting that occasional accidents may arise from the employment by qualified medical practitioners of careless or incompetent dispensers, consider such cases to be very rare, and believe the best protection. 1295 afforded to the public to be the responsibility of the practitioners for the acts or defaults of the servant whom he employs. Instances of such mistakes are not confined to dispensers employed by medical practitioners.