This act focused on regulating the work of medical practitioners in England and Wales. This bill gave the government power to send out wardens to inspect shops and offices of dispensing chemists and surgeons. They examined the drugs they prescribed and imposed penalties when necessary. This reform, along with others exposed the possibility of the unrefined state of the medical profession and the stubbornness of medical men. Lydgate encounters this opposition when he comes to Middlemarch.

Eliot, George. Middlemarch, edited Gregory Maertz. Broadview editions 2004.