The initial purposes of regulation of medicines in England were
principally to raise government revenue, to discourage murder by
poisoning, and to regulate the activities of pharmacists. It was only
much later that regulators sought to ensure that medicines were of good
quality, reasonably safe, and at least somewhat effective, and to
regulate misuse of drugs. Here we survey the history of the regulation
of medicines and poisons in England from the perspective of clinicians
with an interest in therapeutics.