162 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Jan 



numbers of a mite (Tyroglyphus siro). Powdered eantha- 

 rides is also found sometimes to harbor mites, as is also 

 saffron, especially when kept in a moist condition in tins. 

 About ten years ago a friend sent a quantity of colorless 

 powder from the bottom of a tin in which he had kept his 

 saflFron, of which he used considerable quantities. His sus- 

 picions were aroused as to the possibility of having been 

 supplied with an adulterated article. The microscope at 

 once revealed the nature of the powder ; it consisted of 

 innumerable mites, their eggs, and the debris of dead 

 ones. Insects are much more common in the stock of the 

 druggist than is generally supposed, and would be much 

 more generally detected if the handy microscope were 

 brought into use. 



Another direction in which the microscope is rarely turn- 

 ed is towards the filtering papers. The nature of the 

 liquids which a pharmacist has to filter is so various that 

 it is of considerable importance to him that he should use 

 filtering paper composed of suitable material. A micro- 

 scopical examination will reveal such differences in the 

 composition of the filtering papers in the market that he 

 will be tempted to consider the whole question of filtra- 

 tion from another standpoint than that of price — namely, 

 that of efficiency. 



Besides the utility of the microscope in the immediate 

 concerns of the shop, which have been merely indicated 

 in the foregoing remarks, there is the wider application to 

 the concerns of the community at large. This is a work 

 the pharmacist is pre-eminently fitted to undertake. No 

 other class of professional men has the same opportuni- 

 ties of acquiring so extensive and varied a knowledge of 

 the minutije of vegetable and animal substances. Medi- 

 cal men are generally very glad to avail themselves of the 

 opportunity of sending urinary deposits to a skilled mi- 

 croscopist ; and a pharmacist may, with a very small ex- 

 penditure of time and money, soon making himself so pro- 



