44 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST. 
October, 1881. 
Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria for their monthly journal ; 
and to the American Pharmaceutical Association for their 
annual volume of proceedings. At the subsequent meeting of 
the local council, Mr. James P. King was elected vice-president 
for the year, and Mr. James W. Henton, hon. secretary. Since 
last correspondence, Mr. Rivers Langton passed through this 
colony. In Auckland he succeeded in obtaining large orders — 
far beyond his anticipation, I fancy ; he certainly made a 
favourable impression. Mr. Lane, who represents the American 
house of Wm. R. Warner and Co., and Mr. M‘Cord, Seabury 
and Johnson’s traveller, were here together, and did a good 
business. Some of Dr. Lane’s clients wonder at his lengthy 
silence ; he was to have opened up a “ big trade” here. Mr. 
C. A. Gosnell and Mrs. Gosnell have been combining business 
with pleasure. It is quite a brilliant idea of theirs to take a 
honeymoon trip round the world. They finish their tour in 
two years or so, and will then have surveyed the chief ethno- 
logical features of the globe — ethnological, because the “poor 
Indian, with his untutored mind” will be taught the civilising 
influence of “ cherry tooth paste” and “ trichosaron hair 
brushes.” Mr. Gosnell’s chart of travel is a curiosity — a 
diploma for any G. T. Mr. Morgan, the proprietor of the 
Chemist, and Druggist , has been the most recent visitor. He is 
laying up a fund of information in reference to our colonies, 
with the view to their coming to the front one of these days 
in the British Parliament. He intends to contest a metro- 
politan seat at the first general election in the Liberal interest. 
As the General Council meets next December at Dunedin, I 
hope to give you an interesting and hopeful account of the 
future of pharmacy in this colony in my next. 
Auckland, 12th September, 1881. 
PHARMACY IN FIJI. 
We extract the following from the Fiji Times of the 30th J uly : — 
“ With reference to the editorial contained in our issue of 
the 13th instant, we are informed that it was not contem- 
plated by the framer of Ordinance 14, 1881, to subject phar- 
maceutists holding colonial certificates to an examination 
before registering them as persons qualified to practise in this 
colony. It is held that they come within the meaning of the 
words * any person holding a diploma or certificate entitling 
him to practise in any of the capacities aforesaid in the United 
Kingdom,’ occurring in section 3. In accordance with this 
view, the practice has been to hold them exempt from the 
necessity of examination, and to register them upon their satis- 
fying the chief medical officer of their identity with the person 
mentioned in their diploma. Although we thoroughly concur 
in the good policy and general propriety of the practice 
adopted, our conviction that it is opposed to the wording of 
the ordinance remained unchanged ; therefore, to determine 
the matter we have submitted the question to counsel, with 
the following result : — 
“ ‘ Question for the opinion of counsel. — Under Ordinance 
No. 14 of 1881, are pharmaceutists holding colonial diplomas 
only required to pass the examination as provided for in sec- 
tion 7 before registration, or do they come within the meaning 
of the words “any person holding a diploma or certificate 
entitling him to practise in any of the capacities aforesaid in 
the United Kingdom,” occurring in section 3 V 
“ [opinion.] 
“ ‘ Re Ordinance No. 14 of 1881. 
“ ‘ I have perused the provisions of this ordinance with re- 
ference to the question submitted for my opinion — namely, 
whether pharmaceutists holding colonial diplomas only re- 
quire to pass an examination under clause 7. 
“ ‘ Such persons “would clearly have to pass such examina- 
tion ; the diplomas of recognised colonial universities are 
limited to those of doctor or bachelor of medicine or master of 
surgery, and by omission excludes those of pharmaceutists 
from recognition. I may also point out that even colonial 
pharmaceutists’ diplomas recognised in the United Kingdom 
would not enable the holder to practise in the United King- 
dom without registration there, a condition extremely difficult 
to comply with in the majority of cases, and impossible in the 
residue. “ ‘ J. H. Garrick. 
“ ‘ Chambers, July 29, 1881.’” 
Method of Distinguishing Spurious Honey. — A solution 
of twenty pints of honey in sixty of water mixed with alcohol 
gives a heavy white precipitate of dextrine, if glucose has been 
added ; whilst genuine honey, if treated in the same manner, 
merely becomes milky. — Chemical Neivs, 
NOTICE CONCERNING A NEW ORCHID OF 
VICTORIA. 
(By Baron Ferd, yon Mueller, K.C.M.G., M. and Ph. D,, 
F.R.S.) 
Among a number of orchideous plants collected this spring by 
John M'Kibbin, Esq., near the Upper Loddon, occurs a Thely - 
mitra which cannot be referred to any described species. 
That in a colony so much traversed already for botanical pur- 
poses still an absolutely unknown plant of conspicuous beauty 
should hitherto have been overlooked, even in the neighbour- 
hood of a flourishing town, receives its explanation readily 
enough by the circumstance that this pretty orchid from out- 
ward appearance might by a passing collector of flowers 
readily be taken for a small form of Thelymitra longifolia, 
or T. ixioides. Irrespective of this deceptive external resem- 
blance, the new Thelymitra may be as rare or local as it is 
ephemeral, and may thus during the short period of its 
blooming time — when in spring the ground is gay with flowers 
— easily escape attention anywhere. In this way also we 
became aware only during this spring, through Mr. Nancarrow’s 
circumspection, that the lovely Caladenia coerulea occurs as a 
companion of C. deformis — in its sisterly resemblance long 
unnoticed — towards the Lower Murray River, in the whip- 
stick scrub. Facts like these should encourage residents in 
every district to collect methodically the plants of their 
vicinity ; and this is particularly to be recommended to pharma- 
ceutic gentlemen, settled now in numerous places of Australia, 
especially as they would thereby raise their scientific standing, 
and as through their profession they are interested in a flora but 
scantily as yet investigated as regards the medicinal proper- 
ties of plants. Of this even the present case is a demonstrative 
instance, inasmuch as but few of the very many tuberous terres- 
trial orchids of Australia have been examined for therapeutic 
purposes. The tubers of any kinds, not having a bitter taste, are 
likely as valuable for their mucilage as those of several species 
of orchids, especially the British 0. morio and 0. mascula y 
which yield principally the salep-root, a drug undeservedly 
sunk into oblivion. 
The new tubers soon formed after the flowering time of the 
plants, are thrown for a moment into boiling water, then 
briskly and perfectly dried by artificial heat, and finally 
reduced to powder, which must be preserved in a closed glass 
vessel. To prepare the salep-mucilage as a very pleasant 
vehicle for active medicaments in a mixture, one scruple of 
the powder of salep-root is used for two ounces of boiling 
water. The mucilage thus instantly obtainable has formerly 
been used by itself in infantile diarrhoea with very good results. 
The aborigines were in the habit of utilising the tubers of our 
terrestrial orchids for food. 
The new Thelymitra , which with its congeners should also 
be tested for salep, has been dedicated to its discoverer, and 
may be characterised as follows : — 
Thelymitra M'- Kibbinii. 
Quite glabrous, rather dwarf; basal-leaf very narrow, chan- 
nelled, stem-leaf bract-like, solitary ; flowers two, rarely one; 
sepals acute, faintly streaked by subtle veins ; the outer violet- 
coloured, the inner as well as the slightly shorter labellum 
more deeply blue ; terminal appendage on each side of the 
column bright yellow, straight, nearly oblong, almost sessile, 
minutely papillular-fringed, reaching only as high as the 
anther ; crest between the rather widely disconnected ap- 
pendages much shorter than the anther, yellow, hardly den- 
ticulated ; column from below the crest light blue ; anther 
pale yellow, almost smooth, rather blunt. 
Among quartz gravel on hills along the Upper Loddon 
River, near Maryborough ; John M‘Kibbon, Esq. 
This well-marked species belongs to the section Biaurella ; 
from the blue-flowering kinds of that section — namely T. 
venosa and T. cyanea — our new congener is at once distin- 
guished by the appendages of the column, neither twisted nor 
smooth, nor close to each other ; furthermore by the anther 
not acuminated. It verges in some respects to 1. MacmiU 
lani, with which it is associated on the Loddon, as now shown 
by Mr. M'Kibbin; but the latter plant has the stem more 
slender and also more flexuous, and provided with two bract- 
like leaves ; its outer sepals, in the earlier state, are brownish 
purple outside and yellowish at the margin, while the inner 
sepals and labellum are pale yellow, thus far resembling in 
colouration those of T. antennifera, but all sepals turn finally 
more or less red ; furthermore, the appendages of the column 
visibly overtop the anther, by which means also the sepals 
extend not very much beyond the column. T. Macmillani , as 
