A brief summary of the five Acts concerned with the sale of poisons and the dispensing of prescriptions of medical practitioners is given. This outlines the legal position of persons who are permitted to keep "open shop" and to compound and dispense prescriptions. The number of pharmaceutical chemists on the statutory Register is just over 2,000, of whom approximately one third are women. Recruitment in recent years has been insufficient to maintain the number on the Register. Approximately 86 per cent of active pharmacists work in retail shops or as locums. The number of retail chemist shops is just under 1,300 and in most of these only one pharmacist is engaged. About 3,000 people in all are working in retail chemist shops. The average shop in· Dublin and in the four provinces has one proprietor with two assistants. Only three firms have more than six shops.