THE AU STEAL ASIAN JOURNAL OP PHARMACY. 
201 
A PROPOSED RESEARCH LABORATORY. 
Austbalian pharmacists will be glad to learn that there is every probability of 
the Research Laboratory which the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain 
proposes to found being at no distant day an accomplished fact. A recent issue 
of the Pharmaceutical Journal gives the details of the scheme recommended by the 
committee, and the discussion which took place thereon at a recent meeting reveals 
not only the great necessity which exists for such an institution, but the vast 
benefits which are likely to accrue to the cause of pharmacology from its establish- 
ment, . supplying, as it will, the means by which all students who possess the 
requisite scientific knowledge and training will be able to conduct their researches 
under the most advantageous conditions, with little or no expense to themselves, 
and with all the resources and appliances of modern science at their command. It 
would, for instance, as the president pointed out, afford the means of repeating, from 
the point of view of pure pharmacy and chemistry, experiments having for their 
object the improvement of the formulae of the British Pharmacopoeia, "and would 
afford special facilities for working out the chemistry of any new drug. There 
is still great confusion, and some danger, in dealing with the so-called aconitine 
of commerce, and the workers in the laboratory would be able to take this 
subject up, having all the necessary appliances and knowledge for working it out 
with greater advantage than probably any other body of men. Then, again! 
further knowledge is required of the active principles and their value of 
belladonna root and its allies ; and this and many other investigations could be 
very fittingly carried out in such a laboratory, which was also just the place 
where the question of standard and value of important drugs and chemicals used 
in medicine could be determined with something like finality, and in such a way 
that the reports and opinions published would be regarded as conclusive amongst 
men of science. Not the least interesting contribution to the discussion was that 
of Mr. Churchill, who complained that at the present time one-half of the 
medical profession, “instead of prescribing drugs which had been sought out with 
great^ care, prescribed Jones’ essence of this and Smith’s compound syrup of 
that, and that pharmacists were “rapidly drifting into the condition of being 
merely retailers of Jones’ and Smith’s compounds.” There is, unfortunately 
too much truth m the picture drawn by Mr. Churchill, which is applicable to 
Australasia no. less than to Great Britain, and it is specially satisfactory to learn 
that it is within the “ scheme ” of the proposed laboratory to inquire into the 
virtues of these preparations, and to publish the results for the benefit of the 
medical and pharmaceutical professions. There are, we have no doubt, a good 
many manufacturers of the compounds and “patents” which at the present time 
form so large a portion of the pharmacist’s stock-in-trade who view the proposal 
with anything but complacency, and, were it only for the revolution which the 
proposed laboratory is bound to effect in this respect, its establishment will be 
looked forward to with interest by pharmacists in the new as well as in the old 
world. 
Beblin has an hospital for horses. It is managed by a veterinary surgeon an 
ex- captain of artillery, and a farmer. The grounds comprise 100 acres, and there 
are baths for horses amongst the numerous appliances provided. 
. 1he metno system of weights and measures, which was adopted in many labora- 
tories when first introduced, is said to be rapidly losing ground, having been the 
cause of many serious errors. The fact that the misplacement of a single dot will 
turn a comparatively harmless dose of medicine into a most deadly poison bears 
strongly against it. 
