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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    The printer, hookfeller, &c. being defirou's W confult the Commiffioners for their approbation, pleaded an exemption from the penalties againffc the act, by their not having vended patent medi- cines, were anfwered, No j you bookfellers are not excufed by the act on this pretence; there is a word only in the act; for you have not fold drugs or medicines onlyy but a book ; therefore you mud take out a licence. Anfw* Sirs, we fee no- book mentioned in the act. Reply 9 But it is un- derftood Jo and Jo; therefore you are to place a ftamp on all your medicines, whether Tincture of Senna, Salts, Daffy's Elixir, &c. What, Sirs, do you infill on our felling a flamp with common medicines made by the regulars, and only fent us to convey to the afflicted in the neighbourhood ; yet allow a druggifl, perhaps living the next door, dealer in patent medicines, to fell the like patent medicines, and often fuch which come from the fame proprietors ? O, Sirs, the act ex- eufes themj but bookfellers mufl comply, the legiflature intended they fhould be taxed. Who will draw a veil over this fcene of bufi- nefs ? In what land has this curious decifion been allowed ? Not in a Chriftian country I hope ! Under what king's reign will you find a parallel? A Britifh act of parliament twifted, nay, divided -— half a fentence left out in the reading, and the reft is fupplied by imagination ] What for ? to ferve a venal view, as if the fate of Great Britain depended on this mercilefs im- port:. For Commiflioners to divide a fentence of an act of parliament, and flop at the word only to one fet of helplefs men, terrified by threats, by advertifements, by conftructions—in order to make