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THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
At a recent meeting of the board of directors of the Sydney Hospital Mr. 
John Howard was appointed as chief dispenser, in the room of Hyam Israel, 
deceased. Mr. Howard is a M.P.S., N.S.W., and an ex-student of the 
Technical College. Mr. C. H. Swayne has been appointed assistant dispenser, 
in the place of J. Howard, resigned. 
During the month of J anuary 32 additions were made to the roll of students 
of the department of pharmacy, and public lectures have been given by the 
examiner (Dr. Both) on physiology. The curriculum of three years’ study in 
this department has been finally revised, and is only waiting acceptance by the 
Board of Technical Education before incorporation into the new calendar, which, 
we hope, will leave the hands of the G-overnment Printer at an early date. 
A case of excessive overcharge by a druggist was recently brought to light. 
At the latter end of January a gentleman sent to a druggist in one of our 
leading thoroughfares for a mixture containing four grains of cocaine hydrochlor, 
when this drug was selling at the price of eightpence per grain, but the druggist 
asked £2 for the mixture, and finally said that he would be content 
with 80s. 
The children farmed out from the Eandwick Asylum appear not to be well 
treated so far as “medical comforts ” are concerned. At one of the “Homes” 
several cases of ophthalmia have occurred, and the belladonna solution sup- 
plied appears to have been kept in a beer bottle. When the inspector 
came round he was shown a small phial labelled Essence of Ginger, that had 
been employed by the “mother,” who said that it was labelled wrongly. 
Fortunately no fatal results ensued from the careless way in which the belladonna 
solution was supplied. It is not at all uncommon, however, at the various 
hospital or club dispensaries for persons to bring all sorts of vessels for their 
medicine. Lemonade bottles, for instance, are often presented for liniments ; 
and, when a liniment and a mixture is ordered, the dispenser has often to 
explain that the porter bottle is the mixture, and the sodawater bottle is the 
lotion. Active measures are being taken to make the patients provide proper 
receptacles for their medicines, bub one dispenser got into trouble with the club 
authorities for refusing to supply turpentine liniment in a jug. 
Typhoid is much complained of in many localities. At Orange it is stated 
to be especially prevalent. An outbreak at Hindmarsh is said to have arisen 
from drinking water in which a dead cow had been lying. A petition, signed 
by 43 medical ^practitioners of Sydney, was presented at a meeting of the 
Sydney aldermen last month. The petition stated that the spread of typhoid 
was viewed with alarm, and that the infection might be expected to increase in 
virulence as the season advanced. The disease was attributed to the defective 
means employed for the romoval of excreta, which was allowed to accumulate 
without being disinfected. Consequent upon this petition, a resolution was 
carried affirming the desirability of adopting some means for the proper removal 
of night soil. 
Faraday proved the magnetic condition of matter, and that magnetism, 
unlike electricity, cannot be insuluted. 
Professor: “Name an oxide.” Student: “Leather.” Professor: “Oxide of 
what?” Student: “Ox-hide of beef.” Professor faints. 
The largest pharmacy in Europe (says the Vienna Med. Zeitung) is at 
Moscow, that of Waldemar Ferrein, where about 70 or 80 assistants are 
employed, and seven to eight hundred prescriptions are prepared daily. 
