THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
389 
While some harness paste was being mixed recently in a chemist’s shop at 
Bury, England, the vapour from the turpentine (one of the ingredients) coming 
in contact with a gas light, caught fire, and the whole of the spirit blazed up. 
An assistant, who made an effort to carry the mortar into the street, was 
frightfully burnt, and a customer, who went to his aid, also sustained damage. 
It has been noted as a curious fact that the chinchona trees grown in hot- 
houses develop no quinine in their bark. 
The camphor laurel, from which the camphor of commerce is obtained, has 
been successfully introduced in California. It is a native of China. 
Some sensation was recently created in chemical circles in London by the 
announcement that a certain Dr. Cresswell Hewett had discovered the synthetical 
or artifical mode of making quinine, by which the price of that drug would be 
reduced to something like threepence per ounce. Inquiries subsequently insti- 
tuted discredit the claims of the supposed inventor. 
Some misunderstanding exists among the public as to the signification of 
“ chemist ” and “ apothecary.” A suggestion has been made by a German, who 
objects to the word “ apotheker ” as of foreign origin, that the Teutonic phar- 
macist should be styled “Gesundheitswiederherstellungsmittelzusammenmisehungs- 
kundiger.” 
At a recent meeting of the Dresden Agricultural Society a local druggist 
reported that in a neighbourhood where the deadly nightshade grew abundantly 
the bees had incorporated with the honey sufficient poison from these flowers to 
account for numerous and occasionally fatal cases of poisoning. He also stated 
that gelsemium had been detected in American honey. 
A recently published report of the British Commissioners of Inland Bevenue 
shows that in 1886, in connection with the patent medicine trade, 20,279 vendors’ 
licenses were issued, the amount of duty charged being £5070. The number 
of patent medicine labels issued in the same year was 21,468,718, the amount 
of duty charged being £179,071. 
It is reported that the use of ergot for illicit purposes has increased to 
such an extent in Borne that a caution has been issued to pharmacists and mid- 
wives that, if they violate the regulation requiring the retention of the 
prescription the first time it has been dispensed, they will be subjected to 
criminal proceedings. 
A London physician, who for six months tested Dr. Jaeger’s plan of wearing 
nothing but wool day or night, says the result has been a complete immunity 
from colds and a marked increase in capacity for work. Instead of alternate 
feelings of heat and cold there has been a uniform and most agreeable glow of 
warmth. 
At the fire which recently destroyed the left wing of the University of 
Brussels, fifty students were promptly organised to save the most valuable books 
in the library, which contained 64,000 volumes, and succeeded in doing so. The 
unique collection of surgical instruments was also rescued from destruction, but 
the valuable mineralogical collection was entirely consumed. 
Electric Drug Case for Poisons.— A New Orleans druggist has contrived 
a drug case, in which is kept all the deadly poisons in use for the compounding 
of prescriptions. The device is worked by electricity. Whenever the case is 
opened an alarm is sounded by an electric bell, attached to the upper p< rtion, 
which will not cease ringing until the case is closed. It was suggested to him 
by the many mistakes made by druggists in compounding prescriptions in which 
poison was used for a similar drug in appearance. The apparatus precludes all 
possibility of a poison being used without the person in attendance being cognisant 
of the fact that deadly drugs are being handled. 
