PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. sl 
. report on the proceedings of the past year read. The Treasurer’s 
account showed a balance of upwards of £7 in favour of the Society. 
A short address by the retiring President wasread. Two points in 
particular deserve notice. Referring to the new element which had 
been incorporated with the Society during the year, the President 
congratulated the members on the accession of strength which the 
addition of the microscopic section had brought tothe parent Society. 
He also pointed out the utility of microscopical studies, and the ad- 
vances which had been made in every department of science since 
the more general use of the microscope had obtained. The meeting 
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, to be 
held in Birmingham in September next, was then commented on, 
and the members of the Society were urged to use their best 
endeavours to forward the cause of science. Votes of thanks to the 
various retiring officers were then passed. The retiring President, 
W.R. Hughes, Hsq., F.L.S., was re-elected, and Mr. James Hinds 
was elected Secretary. 
British PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
Bath Meeting.—September, 1864. 
On MrcroscoricaLt Resparcu im Rurarion fo Puarmacy. By 
Henry Deane, F.L.S., and Henry B. Brapy, F.LS. 
We have chosen for the particular subject of the present com- 
munication, the various preparations of opium. Whether re- 
garded in respect to their importance in the practice of medicine, 
their variability in strength and character, or the peculiar condi- 
tions in which the active matter exists in the crude drug, no better 
subject could be found for the purpose in view. 
Opium, as is well known, is an extremely composite substance, 
being a pasty mass formed of resinous, gummy, extractive and 
albuminous matters, containing a larger or smaller per-centage of 
certain active principles diffused through it. These principles 
are morphine, narcotine (with its two homologues), codeine, 
narceine, meconine, thebaine, and papaverine, either existing free 
or in combination with meconic, sulphuric, or other acids, the 
sum of the crystalline constituents, exclusive of inorganic salts, 
contained in good samples of the drug being from twenty to 
thirty per cent. of its entire weight. Any preparation, exactly to 
represent opium, must contain the whole of these principles, as 
indeed the tincture may be said fairly to do. 
It has, however, been shown that some of the principles are 
inert, and others even deleterious in their action, and we have con- 
sequently had a class of preparations introduced which are under- 
stood to be of superior efficacy, not from their containing any active 
matter which the tincture does not contain, but because they are 
free from certain substances which are retained by it. Narceine, 
VOL. V.— NEW SER. F 
