In some way Fleet and Simple got cantharides mixed with some snake root and Peruvian bark. Unfortunately Hollenbeck, requiring some of this latter mixture, bought this that these druggists had, took it as a medicine, and in consequence suffered great pain, and had his health permanently impaired. He sued for damages, and recovered a verdict for $1,140. The defendants asked for a new trial, but the Court refused it saying, “Purchasers have to trust to a druggist. It is upon his skill and prudence they must rely. It is his duty to know the properties of his drugs, to be able to distinguish them from one another. It is his duty so to qualify himself, or to employ those who are so qualified, to attend to the business of compounding and vending medicines and drugs, as that one drug may not be sold for another; and so that, when a prescription is presented to be made up the proper medicine, and none other, be used in mixing and compounding it. The legal maxim should be reversed, instead of _caveat emptor_ it should be _caveat venditor_, _i.e._, let him be certain that he does not sell |178| to a purchaser or send to a patient, one thing for another, as arsenic for calomel, cantharides for, or mixed with snake root and Peruvian bark, or even one innocent drug calculated to produce a certain effect, in place of another sent for and designed to produce a different effect. If he does these things he cannot escape civil responsibility upon the alleged pretext that it was an accidental or an innocent mistake. We are asked by the defendants’ attorneys in their argument, with some emphasis, if druggists are in legal estimation, to be regarded as insurers. The answer is, we see no good reason why a vendor of drugs, should in his business be entitled to a relaxation of the rule which applies to vendors of provisions, which is, that the vendor undertakes and insures that the article is wholesome [466].” The general customer is not supposed to be skilled in the matter of drugs, but in the purchase he must rely upon the druggist to furnish the article called for; and in this particular business the customer who has not the experience and learning necessary to a proper vending of drugs, will not be held to the rule that he must examine for himself, it would be but idle mockery for the customer to make the examination when it would avail him nothing. On the contrary, the business is such that in the very nature of things, the druggist must be held to warrant that he will deliver the drug called for and purchased by the customer [467]. It is the duty of the druggist to know whether his drugs are sound or not, and it is no answer to his want of knowledge to say, that the buyer had opportunities for inspection, and could judge for himself of the quality of goods [468].