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While all of these may have played some part, there are e other causes which we believe have contributed to this end. There is, as we all know, a scarcity of really accomplished nurses in Baltimore, and while the Directory has its majority of those in town, it has not enough to supply the demand, and our best nurses are almost con stantly engaged. In consequence of this, applications are sometimes made for them and we have to report them engaged; or application! is made for a nurse by a party who, we know, will only be satisfied by the very best, and they being engaged we are obliged to say that we cannot furnish one. While this is true, however, we wish it to be clearly understood that we have no nurses on our list who have not been recommended as good by one or more members of this Faculty, or by one or more prominent physicians in this or other communities. We have endeavored to keep track of all nurses, and have always investigated any reported ground of complaint.

We believe that the number of accomplished nurses registered would be materially increased if certain prominent physicians would advise their best nurses to register and discourage their employment except through the Directory. It is a matter worthy of being again brought to your attention that it is not, as a rule, those physicians who presumably have most need of nurses that most frequently send to the Directory, not indeed is it the Faculty as a body; its most constant patrons are a few comparatively young men. Want of sufficient advertisement is probably another factor, for it has been found by your committee that after the insertions in the newspapers, sending out of postal cards, etc., there has been an increase of business, and then another decline until the next published statement. These statements are, however, quite costly, and the Directory cannot afford to make them frequently. Recognizing these causes as operating to the hindrance of the Directory, and appreciating its inability to cope with them to its own satisfaction, your present committee respectfully requests that it be not reappointed, but that members of your body more competent to meet the difficulties of the case be allowed to do so. The present committee feels that it has done what it could in this matter. From a beginning of nothing, so to speak, without begging or borrowing, it has formed, and up to the present, conducted a Directory for nurses which is or should be a great convenience to you and the public, which has paid its own way, has no indebtedness, has already contributed something to your library and is capable of contributing more if properly supported,

and has withal cost you nothing, except for the printing of extracts from its reports made to you, an expense voluntarily incurred by your representatives.

In a word, your committee feels that it has prepared the soil and sown the seed for an abundant harvest, but is unable, under present conditions, to rear the crop and garner the grain, and therefore requests that more skillful laborers be put into the field.

It will give the present committee much pleasure to render the future committee every possible assistance, and we respectfully suggest that the cash balance on hand be held subject to the control of the committee to be appointed.

Respectfully submitted,

T. BARTON BRUNE, M. D., Chairman,
ROBT. W. JOHNSON, M. D.,

WM. GREEN, M. D.

STATEMENT OF REGISTRAR OF DIRECTORY
FOR NURSES.

FROM APRIL IST, 1884, TO MAY IST, 1885.

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Respectfully submitted,

G. HENRY CHABOT, M. D., Registrar.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON POTENT DRUGS.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the

Medical and Chirurgical Faculty :

The Committee appointed by your honorable body to draft a law restricting the sale of potent drugs have to report as follows:

In the first days of our existence many verbal and a lengthy written communication were received from different apothecaries, chemists and retail druggists upon the subject of the sale of potent drugs and counter prescribing. These gentlemen, owing to a typographical error in the daily newspaper, which had printed "patent" instead of "potent," erroneously supposed that your Committee was about

to enter upon a crusade against patent medicines. To notice communications of this kind or to discuss in any manner the practice of medicine by apothecaries would be to overstep the duties imposed upon us by this Faculty. Such matter was consequently eliminated from our deliberations.

The stringency of the laws regulating the sale of potent drugs in the more important countries and capitals of the old world, is in strong contrast with the great laxity in this respect existing in America, being a natural consequence partly of the absence of proper laws upon the subject, and partly of the non-enforcement of such as already exist.

The increase in the habitual use of narcotics by the laity as well as in the ratio of suicides and suicidal attempts by this means, has, during the last few years, borne a direct proportion to the increased quantity of opium imported annually, after deducting the amount used for purposes of smoking.

In a paper entitled "Hypnotism," and read at a recent convention of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of this State, some of the results of your chairman's experience were given. It was then suggested that if physicians would order that no prescriptions should be refilled without being rewritten, but little would be accomplished towards eradicating the habit, as the public would still have access to the drugs through retail druggists and grocers. Although, as will be noted, the English law permits apothecaries to sell poisons to their patients, it does not permit them to practice in the broader signification of the term; and apothecaries in England are bound by such stringent legal requirements, as regards examination by the State, qualification, license, penalty, etc., as to seriously limit their permission to sell.

Our work has been by no means a sinecure, having for ultimate object to prevent the promiscuous sale of such drugs as bromide of potash, hydrate of chloral, opium and its preparations, belladonna and its preparations, aconite, hydrocyanic acid, arsenic, etc., to the general public, who, under the existing state of circumstances, have access to them through the retail druggists without let or hindrance, thus accounting in part at least, if not principally, for the increase in the habit of hypnotism and in the number of suicidal attempts and suicides by poison. It was found to be necessary to examine the law quite extensively, and eminent legal advice and assistance have been freely given. We are indebted among others to our State's Attor

ney, Mr. Charles G. Kerr, for valuable aid, from which it appears that there is at present no law existing in the State of Maryland either requiring apothecaries to keep a record of sales of poisonous drugs or placing any restriction whatever upon such sales, either by them or the sale of laudanum by grocers, which, we are informed, upon good authority, is also done.

A general law, such as is contemplated by your Committee and to be submitted to the Legislature at its next session, if such be your will, will obviate the sale of laudanum by grocers. Several members of the Legislature have promised your Committee their co-operation and support, expressing their opinions that such a law would be universally beneficial, entertaining no doubt with reference to its adoption by their body, and giving us great reason to feel encouraged at the result of our labors up to the present time. We are aware, however, that this is but the beginning and not the end, not forgetting the difficulties that surround us on all sides. First, the opposition on the part of the apothecaries themselves, who, in the event of the passage of such a law, would find a lucrative revenue seriously cut down. Then, again, there is no job in the bill which is enough to procure the cold indifference of the professional politician.

It has then only, after a careful examination of the statutes at present existing in different countries and States, that your Committee were able to make memoranda of facts to be embodied as a basis from which to frame an adequate law. The English law is :

1. An Act to Regulate the Sale of Poisons. 31st and 32d Vict., section 17. It shall be unlawful to sell any poison, either by wholesale or by retail, unless the box, bottle, vessel, wrapper or cover in which such poison is contained be distinctly labeled with the name of the article and the word poison, and with the name and address of the seller of the poison; and it shall be unlawful to sell any poison of those which are in schedule A of this Act (including opium and its preparations, belladonna and its preparations, chloroform and aconite) to any person unknown to the seller, who shall make entry in a book kept for the purpose the date of sale, the name and address of purchaser, and the purpose for which it is stated to be required, which the purchaser shall sign, upon a penalty for violation of this Act not exceeding 5 pounds for the first offense nor 10 pounds for each succeeding offence. Nothing in this act shall affect any of the provisions of the Act to regulate the sale of arsenic.

2. An Act to Regulate the Sale of Arsenic. 14th and 15th Vict.,

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