March, 1880. 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST. 
87 
vessel of about 300 litres capacity, and only 2 to 3 mm. thick- 
ness. As the combination occurred at about 100 deg., the 
force would be greater. M. Kuhlmann has repeated the 
explosion several times in laboratory experiments, and he 
finds that it always occurs with great violence where the 
quantity of water is at least ten equivalents for one of acid. 
In presence of the difficulty of mixing these two substances, 
which have a very great affinity, but the density of which is 
so different that they may remain several hours one on the 
other without mixture and consequent combination, the need 
of cautious management is obvious. 
(&0XXZ8$0XlbZXlCZ. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
We have received a letter from Mr. W. J. Brownscombe ; but 
as at the last meeting of the council the proposed amended 
rules were discussed, and a decision arrived at, which will be 
reported to the special meeting summoned for 7th May, there 
is no necessity for its publication. — E d. 
of genius enough to teach something to our brother chemists 
over the sea, and raise the status of pharmacy by supplying 
these wants from among ourselves, and thereby relieve us 
from paying duties and percentages, profits here and there, on 
this flood of foreign productions ? Let our wholesale houses 
help us, and make the necessary bottles, &c., for putting up 
our own proprietary articles, and let us be a more independent 
colony in this matter. 
I would suggest, Mr. Editor, that the Pharmaceutical 
Society should allow samples of colonial preparations to be 
forwarded for their inspection, and that they publish their 
opinion on them, and endeavour to eradicate from our pre- 
scriptions— “ Chlorodyne” (Collis Brown’s), ‘‘Nepenthe” 
(Squire’s), “ Pill, Antib.” (Cockle’s) ; “ Try one bottle Eno’s 
Fruit Salt”; “Get a box of Kram’s Pills;” “Liq. Bismuthi” 
(Sch’s.) ; and others too numerous to mention in this catalogue. 
Having so far ventilated the subject, I trust someone else 
may be found ready to assist and relieve us from encumbering 
our shelves with expensive articles that ought to be the legiti- 
mate production of the pharmacist himself, and prevent the 
importation of the trash forced upon us through the adver- 
tising medium. — Yours truly, Emancipator. 
To the Editor of The Australasian Supplement to the Chemist 
and Druggist. 
Sir — I will deem it a great favour if any of your corre- 
spondents can inform me of the best compound for coating 
pills. I have one of Cartner’s patent pill-coaters, but fail to 
turn out pills coated to my satisfaction. I have tried French 
chalk and liquid gum, sugar and ditto, a mixture of French 
chalk and sugar and ditto, also albumen and chalk and sugar, 
but cannot succeed. — Yours, & c. Ambition. 
To the Editor of The Australasian Supplement to the Chemist 
and Druggist. 
SIR — My attention has just been called to a notice of the 
recent milk adulteration case in your issue of February. I 
am made to state that colonial milk “ was inferior in quality 
to that produced in England.” This I am sure I did not say ; 
and that I had “found that the percentage of water was from 
4)4 to 95.” What I desired to convey to the court was that, in 
my opinion, Wanklyn’s milk standard is too high ; judged 
by it several samples of genuine milk analysed in the museum 
laboratory showed only from 94 to 95 per cent, of pure milk — 
not water. 
Will you kindly correct the report in your next issue ? and 
oblige, yours very truly, J. Cosmo Newbery. 
Melbourne, 22nd March, 1880. 
MEDICAMENTA ARCANA. 
To the Editor of The Australasian Supplement to the Chemist 
and Druggist. 
Sir — W ith your permission I wish to have a little talk with 
my fellow-pharmacists, trusting it will be for our mutual 
benefit ; and the subject of our conversation shall be the 
“ Proprietary Medicine Trade.” 
For years I have watched with regret the importation of 
this description of medicine from England, France, America, 
and elsewhere, not only as a loss of revenue to the druggist, 
but a tacit depreciation of his abilities. 
Many of us were in the business prior to our arrival here, 
and can look back with pleasure at the paucity of patent 
medicines sold in our time ; in fact, can remember that we 
had our own preparations, and always recommended them in 
place of “patents.” Why? Because on our own articles 
we could depend, and also that we made a better profit on 
their sale. But here I find pharmacists (?) lower themselves 
to tout the preparations of others instead of placing before 
their patients a remedy produced by their own knowledge of 
their profession, and, in most instances, better qualified to suit 
their case than the imported nostrums that inundate our 
colony. Are they so deficient in the knowledge of the drug 
they dispense that they consider it safer and better to recon. 
mend So-and-so’s essence, or What-d’ye-call-em’s syrup, 
&c. ? Why should we have chlorodyne, pectorals, pills, salts, 
See., forced on us for sale ? Surely the pharmacists of the 
present day are capable of producing articles as good and in 
many cases better than this imported legion of medicamenta. 
Let us, I ask, bestir ourselves. Have we not amongst us men 
THE “DRUGGING OF ANIMALS ACT.” 
At the annual meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society, Mr. 
Graham Mitchell, F.R.C.Y.S., a member of the society, 
brought under notice the desirability of having some measure 
similar to “ Drugging of Animals Act,” now in force in England, 
pass during the next Parliament. For the information of our 
readers we publish the Act at present in operation in. 
England, and shall be glad of any suggestions, as no doubt 
this Act might be considerably improved on. The absence of 
qualified veterinary surgeons in many country districts makes 
it desirable to provide that medicines should be supplied by 
only qualified pharmacists. 
An Act to Prevent the Administration op Poisonous 
Drugs to Horses .and Other Animals. 1st June, 
1876. (39 Vict., Cap. 13.) 
Whereas it is expedient to make provision against the prac- 
tice of administering poisonous drugs to horses and other 
animals by disqualified persons, and without the knowledge 
and consent of the owners of such horses and animals : 
Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by 
and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, 
and by the authority of the same, as follows : 
]. If any person wilfully and unlawfully administers to or 
causes to be administered to or taken by any horse, cattle, or 
domestic animal any poisonous or injurious drug or substance, 
he shall (unless some reasonable cause or excuse is shown on 
his behalf) be liable, on summary conviction, to a penalty not 
exceeding five pounds, or, at the discretion of the court, to 
imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not 
exceeding one month in the case of a first offence, or three 
months it the case of a second or any subsequent offence. 
2. Nothing in this Act shall extend to any person being 
owner or acting by authority of the owner of the horse, cattle, 
or other animal to which any drug or substance is adminis- 
tered. 
3. Nothing in this Act shall exempt a person from liability 
to any greater or other punishment under any other Act or 
law, so that he be not more than once punished for the same 
offence. 
4. Any offence against this Act may be prosecuted in the 
manner provided by the Summary Jurisdiction Acts before two 
justices of the peace. 
5. This Act shall not extend to Scotland or to Ireland. 
6. This Act may be cited as the “ Drugging of Animals Act, 
1876.” 
A PAYING HOSPITAL. 
W:': some time ago drew attention to this subject in the columns 
of this journal. In America we find “invalid hospitals” in 
healthy localities away from the centres of population, which 
have proved a great success, and are gradually increasing. 
This want has been long felt in Australia, where there is great 
difficulty for strangers and bachelors obtaining good nursing, 
without which doctoring is of very little use. Many casea 
