August 3, 191 1] 



NATURE 



163 



" infants' " milk is obtained, and the tests to which the 

 milk should be subjected, were also discussed. It was 

 agreed that when a change from dry to green food was 

 made, it must be done gradually, and also that the milk 

 from cows on good pasture was permissible for the feeding 

 of voting children, and could be recommended. The con- 

 gri ss did not, however, feel that then was unanimity in 

 the proposals which had been made, so it was finally 

 decided that a special commission should be appointed to 

 draw up regulations for the veterinary control of milk, and 

 to submit them to the next International Dairy Congress. 



The following were elected to the special commission : — 

 Torls. Rotterdam ; Regner, Stockholm ; C. O. Jensen, 

 ■Copenhagen; Martel, Paris; Trotter, Glasgow; Bougert, 

 Berlin ; Ostertag, Berlin ; Winkler, Vienna ; Zschokke, 

 Zurich; Malm, Christiania ; Happich, Dorpat ; Fettick, 

 Budapest; Fiorentini, Milan; with power to add to their 

 number. 



A recommendation was made to the milk associations of 

 the various countries to appoint committees, which should 

 work with the object of getting the control system intro- 

 duced into all public and private ventures. 



I he fifth subject dealt with the supervision of the milkers 

 and attendants, and the visiting of them in their homes by 

 a regularly appointed medical man was urged. Cleanli- 

 ness in the habits of dress of the milkers was also strongly 

 recommended. 



In the second section of the congress the subjects dealt 

 with have a more practical and less scientific bearing, with 

 the exception, of the seventh subject, noted below. The 

 •sixth subject, for example, treated of what demands should 

 he made in the rase of new milk intended for direct con- 

 sumption, of condensed milk, and of dried milk. The 

 congress passed a number of strong recommendations, 

 which, if they could only be carried out, would be of the 

 greatest possible benefit to the consumer, but to the pro- 

 ducer they would necessitate a heavy expense and a 

 consequent increase in the cost of the milk. 



Subject number seven placed before the section was a 

 question dealing with analytical methods to be employed in 

 testing milk and dairy products. In addition to the 

 cirdinarv fat determination, and the taste and smell, it was 

 advocated that a test for dirt should be made also the 

 reductase test (Barthel), the fermentation test (Walter), 

 and the leucocythemin test (Walter) and the catalase test. 

 The alcohol boiling test and a determination of the acidity 

 were also advised. 



No unanimous resolution was adopted, but the general 

 feeling of the congress seemed to be that the above- 

 mentioned tests could be used with most satisfactory results. 

 whether the milk was intended for direct consumption or 

 for the manufacture of butter, cheese, &c. 



The ninth subject, which dealt with cheese control, 

 attracted a large amount of attention from representatives 

 of countries exporting cheese. It was resolved by the 

 congress that it should he left to the next congress to fix 

 what ran be regarded as the- normal amounts of dry matter 

 and fat in cheese. The permanent committee was charged 

 with the task of undertaking the necessary preliminary 

 work. It was also recommended that margarine cheese' 

 should not be made up in form of the ordinary types o! 

 Commercial cheese. 



The question of the training and instruction of the 

 personnel of dairies was closed with an invitation to the 

 societies of each nation to draw up methods and conditions 

 of instruction. 



Finally the congress resolved that it is absolutely indis- 

 pensable, for the avoidance of misunderstandings, that in 

 all dairv publications the' metric units of measure and 

 weight should be- used, and for temperatures the degrees 

 centigrade. 



At the conclusion of the congress most of the members 

 paid a v'sit to Orob>-o. whpre the twenty-first General 

 Swedish Agricultural Exhibition was held. These exhibi- 

 tions are held once in five- years in different parts^ of 

 Sweden. The show, somewhat spoilt bv rain on the first 

 dav, was excellent. The members of the Dairy Congress 

 had then an opportunity of taking part in one of four 

 different excursions. Those- who were interested chiefly in 

 agricultural and eeluratieen.il matters visited Ostergotland 

 and Scania, and were rewarded by a most interesting and 

 instructive trip. 



no. 21-9, vol. 8;] 



THE BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL 

 CONFERENCE. 

 'THE forty-eighth annual meeting of the British Pharma- 

 -*■ ceutical Conference was held at Portsmouth on 

 [uly ^5^7 under the presidencj of Mr. W. F. Wells. 

 The presidential address dealt mainly with pharmaceutical 

 legislation, incidentally directing attention to the tact that 

 the laws regulating the practice of pharmacy in Germany 

 and France afford better protection and greater privileges 

 for pharmacists than the British and Irish laws. Mr. 

 Wells deprecated the practice of Irish boards of guardians 

 of purchasing drugs of inferior quality at competitive 

 prices, and expressed the opinion that a large proportion 

 of the damaged drugs imported from abroad went to public 

 institutions, the governors of which paid more attention 

 to price than to quality. 



For the first time in its history, the- meetingwas this 

 year divided into two sections, the- " science section" and 

 the "practice section." In the former section eighteen 

 papers were contributed, the larger number of which were 

 of purely pharmaceutical interest. 



Mr. H. Finnemore and Mr. G. E. Town contributed a 

 short note on Bartsia odontites, a very common wayside 

 plant of the natural order Scrophulariaceae. It is well 

 known that this plant is avoided by cattle, and bearing 

 in mind the haphazard methods in which our knowledge 

 of the use of medicinal plants has emerged, and also the 

 fact that plants botanically related often contain similar 

 chemical constituents, it occurred to the authors that this 

 relative of digitalis might possibly be worthy of pharma- 

 cological and chemical study. A quantity of the plant was 

 extracted with alcohol, but Dr. Laidlaw, who tested the 

 action of the solution on frogs, found that it had no 

 poisonous or digitalis-like .-fleet. A crystalline matter 

 which separated from the alcoholic solution was identified 

 as mannite. 



Mr. H. J. Henderson described an experiment in pepper- 

 mint culture in the shade. The plants were grown on the 

 bank of a stream at Hitchin, and some of them reached 

 a height of 50 inches : the stems were stout, and the 

 leaves correspondingly large. It was found, however, that 

 the lack of sunlight, due to the shadow cast by the trees 

 on the opposite bank, prevented the production of the- 

 hairs hearing the oil cells, and reacted powerfully on the 

 yield of oil, this being only o-t per cent, from the fresh 

 herb. The yield of oil from ordinary plants grown on the 

 same farm was 0-409 per cent. 



Mr. E. H. Farr and Mr. R. Wright contributed a paper 

 in which they described experiments carried out with the 

 view of testing the accuracy of the statement, which is 

 frequently made, to the effect that in the conversion of 

 opium into extract or tincture the quantity of morphine 

 shown bv the official assay of a sample of opium is nlwaxs 

 -re. it.r than the amount found in the finished product. 

 The authors find this statement to be correct. In seven 

 samples of opium worked upon, the loss of morphine varied 

 between the limits of 0-8 per rent, and q-o per cent, of 

 the whole, with an average for the whole series of 4-7!? per 

 ,i,i The loss appears to be due to occlusion of the 

 alkaloid, rendering its complete extraction by water or 

 alcohol a matter of practical impossibility, or to some other 

 factor which has hitherto escaped recognition. 



Mr. H. Deane, in a communication on extract of Indian 

 hemp, demonstrated the variability of this extract as sup- 

 plied bv the manufacturers. He suggested a modification 

 of the official process of manufacture by which an extract 

 consisting practically of pure r<" '.: ./ould he obtained. 



Mr. R. R- Benii.tt suggested that an iodine standard 

 should be officially adopted for Thyroideum siccum. The 

 majority of pharmacologists are agreed that the activity 

 of thyroid is dependent upon the combined iodine present, 

 but the author finds that the combined iodine present in 

 commercial preparations varies considerably. The_ per- 

 centage of iodine in dry thvroid prepared from a series of 



.1 ,,'s thyroids obtained direct from the slaughter-house 



varied from 0-21 per cent, to 0-006 per cent., the average 

 value h.-ing 0-158 per cent. The author thinks that an 

 iodine standard of o-i$ per cent, might be adopted with- 

 out unduly harassing the manufacturer. 



Mr. John C. Umney contributed a note on Podophyllum 

 emodi. At the request of the Indigenous Drugs Com- 



