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BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE, NORWICH. 



1868. affording only a few pounds of the drug in a sound condition. 

 As the price has also very much advanced, it is not surprising 

 that British rhubarb, which is at least well prepared and of 

 good appearance, should find numerous purchasers. The in- 

 creased facilities for traversing the interior provinces of China 

 may soon, I hope afford an opportunity of reaching some of the 

 districts in which rhubarb is produced, and of bringing thence 

 living plants of this most valuable drug. 



Dr. Fliickiger, of Berne, one of the most careful and profound 

 pharmacologists living, and who I am happy to tell you is a 

 contributor of some papers to our Conference, has lately pointed 



Kamala. O ut that a second sort of Kamala, differing essentially from that 

 derived from Bottlera tinctoria, Eoxb., has been imported into 

 commerce. This new form of the drug appears as a dark 

 chocolate-coloured powder, which is seen to consist of grains of 

 larger size than those of ordinary kamala, and of very different 

 structure. The new drug is almost entirely free from sand, 

 which has not been the case with most of that hitherto found in 

 the market. Yet freedom from earthy admixture is a condition 

 in which it is possible to obtain kamala, even as a commercial 

 article. Some quantity of it recently shipped from India was so 

 pure that it afforded upon incineration only T37 per cent of ash. 



Cinchona. The introduction of the Cinchona into India, is an enterprise 

 the success of which ought to be gratifying to every Englishman, 

 not indeed so much as a source of commercial wealth to our 

 country, as because it will, we may hope, perpetuate to the world a 

 supply of those precious barks which the improvidence of the 

 South Americans has long threatened to annihilate. To the Dutch 

 we must concede the honour of having led the way to the good 

 results which our plantations promise to afford ; for although 

 the culture of the Cinchona was thought of and even feebly 

 attempted so far back as the year 1852, it was not until after 

 extensive plantations were commenced in Java in 1854, that our 

 Government was stimulated to take the matter actively in hand ; 

 and it is to the experiments, the failures, the errors of these first 

 Dutch cultivators that we are indebted for much of the success 

 already attained. 



