428 BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE, EXETER. 1 



1869. cent, of sulphate of lime, is still very generally sold. In 

 MillToFsul- justification it is said that the public prefer the impure article as 

 phur. being whiter and more easily miscible with water, that it is the 

 true lac sulphuris of the Pharmacopoeia, sulphur prcecipitatum 

 being a distinct preparation ; l to which I may add another 

 consideration (too far fetched, let us hope, to be real), that the 

 first is but half the price of the second. It is hard to combat 

 popular prejudice, and sometimes impossible for a druggist to 

 convince his customer that one article is less adapted to his 

 requirements than another. I have heard a person require the 

 rankest and most offensive cod-liver oil in preference to what 

 was sweet and new ; and have even known an ointment that was 

 old and rancid habitually preferred to that which was freshly 

 made. Yet in proportion to the amount of confidence reposed 

 in the knowledge, skill and fidelity of the druggist, so will the 

 public accept his judgment in matters pertaining to his own 

 art ; and even a druggist's dictum that pure sulphur is better 

 than sulphur and plaster of Paris, will come to be admitted as 

 reasonable. 



Our art, gentlemen, is ever progressive. All science is interest- 

 ing for us, since almost every scientific discovery may sooner or 

 later, directly or indirectly, yield some result profitable to 

 pharmacy. Let us not therefore neglect our opportunities, but 

 identifying ourselves with the general advancement of know- 

 ledge, let us strive to improve by every means in our power that 

 branch of the healing art which it is our province to cultivate. 



1 It was true that the sulphur prcecipitat um of the Pharmacopoeia of 1746 

 was ordered to be made with sulphur, lime and sulphuric acid ; and the lac 

 sulphuris of that of 1721, with sulphur, lime or salt of tartar, and sulphuric 

 acid. But it is questionable if the chemists of that period were aware of the 

 essential difference of the products obtained, according to whether a lime or a 

 potash-salt were decomposed with sulphuric acid, for Pemberton in his Dis- 

 pensatory 1746 calls the preparations " similar," but says that the one " will 

 not look so white " as the other. 



