HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



207 



MR. STANLEY'S MEDICINE CHEST. 



SOME years ago I remember being told that the 

 medicine chest, which Mr. Stanley was taking 

 with him to Equatorial Africa had been prepared by 

 a very distinguished London firm ; the drugs it 

 contained, it was added, were not the ordinary 

 fluids, but dry and compressed so as to form hard, 

 tasteless and almost inodorous disks ; an advantage 

 which, under his circumstances, indeed under any 

 circumstances, was simply enormous, for it saves the 

 trouble of weighing and measuring, and all that the 

 doctor or dispenser has to do is to count out a 

 certain number of disks, and hand them to the 

 patient. The importance of this improved method 

 of dispensing is very great, and it must ultimately 

 in large measure supersede the slower and more 

 cumbrous methods, once the fashion in the infancy 

 of medical science. I have found the convenience 

 of prescribing tabloids so great that, on the rare 

 occasions when I have had to administer medicines 

 to any near relative, I have always given them the 

 preference, and recently when my sister-in-law was 

 returning to Central America and wanted to take 

 a large supply of quinine, antipyrin, cascara, sagrada 

 and cocaine, I obtained bottles of compressed tabloids 

 for her, which in addition to portability and superior 

 economy, were in such a form that she could find 

 no difficulty in taking the precise dose required. For 

 persons at sea and travelling, and in chronic 

 complaints tabloids are more convenient than any- 

 thing else. 



Mr. Stanley in " Darkest Africa," makes the 

 following remarks : — " Messrs. Burroughs, Wellcome 

 & Co., of Snow Hill Buildings, London, E.C., the 

 well-known chemists, furnished gratis nine beautiful 

 chests replete with every medicament necessary to 

 combat endemic disease peculiar to Africa. Every 

 drug was in ' Tabloids ' mixed with quick solvents ; 

 every compartment was well stocked with essentials 

 for the doctor and surgeon. Nothing was omitted, 

 and we all owe a deep debt of gratitude to these 

 gentlemen, not only for the intrinsic value of these 

 chests and excellent medicines, but also for the 

 personal selection of the best that London could 

 furnish, and the supervision of the packing, by 

 which means we were enabled to transport them to 

 Yambuya without damage." 



It was accordingly with the liveliest curiosity that 

 I heard that at the annual meeting of the British 

 Medical Association in Birmingham in July, not 

 only would Mr. Stanley be present and give an 

 address, but that Mr. Parke, the young surgeon who 

 had the signal honour of accompanying the Emin 

 Pacha Relief Expedition, would receive the gold 

 medal of the Association for Distinguished Service, 

 while the famous chest, which has gone through such 

 strange and eventful scenes would be exhibited. It 

 was in some measure in consequence of the last 



announcement that I made my way to Birmingham 

 intent, among other matters, on examining and 

 reporting upon the condition in which I found the 

 drugs which had been brought back. 



It is now pretty generally known that Mr. Henry 

 Stanley, though better, was not sufficiently recovered 

 to be present and address the Association as was 

 intended, though his able medical lieutenant, Mr. 

 Parke, was present, and after receiving the medal 

 at the hands of Dr. Wade, the president of the 

 Association, returned thanks and made a few remarks 

 on his memorable travels. It would be excess of 

 flattery to say that Mr. Parke is a particularly fluent 

 or impressive speaker, but he is an excellent surgeon, 

 and the part he played in the expedition and the 

 praise he received from his illustrious chief must be 

 well known to all my readers. Mr. Stanley seems at 

 times to have been in extreme danger, and to have 

 run some risk of death from starvation ; "he was," 

 says Mr. Parke " nourished entirely on milk and 

 beef-tea, peptonized by means of zymine peptonizing 

 powders, another of the great boons of modern 

 scientific despensing." 



It is always a great privilege to see men who from 

 accident or merit have had the rare good fortune to 

 fill an important part, and the surgeon to the Emin 

 Relief Expedition cannot be denied a large amount 

 of unqualified praise, while Mr. Stanley has in 

 graceful words done all in that way for him which 

 any one could wish. In one of the museums I found 

 some of the famous poisoned darts, as well as certain 

 bullets to which, to satisfy the superstitious natives, 

 a little wooden spike was attached ; these were the 

 property of Mr. Parke. 



The chest, I was, however, particularly delighted 

 to see, for I know to my cost, having lived on a 

 lonely island for some years, how soon most 

 common fluid drugs become cloudy, lose their 

 strength, repel by their taste or appearance, and so 

 may be in short positively injurious. I could not 

 but hurry in anxious curiosity to the chest, which 

 had been subjected to three years' exposure to heat, 

 damp and rapid movement, over bad roads or rather 

 on rough tracks in the forest. 



There at last I found it, little remarkable in appear- 

 ance, but henceforth memorable. I took up bottle 

 after bottle reverently, and carefully examined the 

 contents, and found to my surprise that in spite of 

 such prolonged exposure they were still perfect and 

 sound ; true the contents of one or two had slightly 

 evaporated or become enveloped in crystals, but even 

 these were excellent, while all the other bottles were 

 as pure, palatable and attractive as the day on which 

 they left the works of Burroughs, Wellcome & Co. 

 fit for another journey as long and eventful, and 

 certain to return as good as when they started. Mr. 

 Parke's own words deserve reproduction. " Surgeon 

 Parke has," says the "British Medical Journal" of 

 July 12th, 1890, "personally informed us that the 



