VoL, ii., No. 4. 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST OP AUSTRALASIA 
107 
50 I 28. T.S.T., Castlemaine. — Petroleum Ether is other- 
wise known as petroleum benzin, or benzin; it must not be 
confounded with the true benzol. It is one of the lighter 
constituents of crude petroleum, having a specific gravity of 
•670 to *675. It is a colourless, transparent, highly-inflam- 
mable liquid, boiling at 122deg. to llOdeg. F. It should be 
obtainable from wholesale druggists. 
71 I GLAUBER'S SPIRIT OF NITRE.— 
Can you tell me what Glauber’s spirit of nitre is ? It is one 
of the articles required for an experiment mentioned on page 
769 of last year’s Chemist and Drwjfjist. 
[Sph'iUis Nitri Glauheri was included in the London Phar- 
macopoeia of 1746 and is Nitric acid, see The Chemists axd 
Druggists’ Diary, 1878.] 
41 I 29, — Lux, Bathurst. — LANOLINE. We hope to give 
full particulars of the manufacture of Lanoline in an early 
issue. 
37/19. ^ LIQUID GLYCERINE AND CUCUMBER. Suh- 
scriher, Newtown, N.H.W. you do not send your name and so 
are not entitled to a reply, but we will do our best for you. 
No formula has been published for this preparation, but it is 
an emulsion of cucumber ointment with soap. It has been 
suggested that two cakes of W. & G.’s white glycerine soap 
should be used to emulsify a pound of ungnentum cucumeris. 
For making the latter the following form has been suggested. 
Oil of sweet almonds 7 fl. ozs. 
Spermaceti 18 drms. 
White wax 5 drms. 
Glycerine Ifl.oz. 
Green cucumbers .. 41hs. 
Cut the cucumbers in small pieces, mash them in a wedg- 
wood mortar, let them macerate in their own liquor for twelve 
hours (perhaps less in this climate) express and strain ; melt 
the almond oil, spermaceti and wax together by means of a 
waterbath ; add the strained liquor stirring constantly so as 
incorporate the whole together. Set aside in a cool place (an 
ice chest preferred) till it becomes hard ; then beat with a 
wooden spoon so as to separate the watery portion of the 
cucumber from the ointment, pour oft’ the liquor thus obtained, 
and mix the glycerine with the ointment without the aid of 
heat by working it with the hands until it becomes thoroughly 
incorporated. It is claimed that ointment made in this way 
and put up in four ounce jars will keep good a twelvemonth. 
Our “ Subscriber ” must experiment to get this ointment into 
a liquid emulsion, but there should be little difficulty in ob- 
taining that end. 
17/19. BLEACHING SPONGES. A. R. R., Victoria,— 
Ine simplest method of bleaching sponges seems to be as 
follows: First, wash thoroughly in several waters and squeeze 
dry ; second, soak in a two per cent, solution of potassium per- 
manganate; here they become quite brown; after ten minutes, or 
such time as is necessary, take them out, wash in clean w'ater, 
squeeze out, dip in dilute sulphuric (1 in 20) or hydrochloric (1 
an lo) acid ; again wash in fresh water and dry. The delicate part 
V is the soaking in the permanganate of jiota-sh ; 
If this is too prolonged the sponge gets rotten, if not long 
enough the colour is not what is desired. Experiment on a 
worthless piece of sponge before operating on a quantity. 
PHARMACEUTICAL EXAMINATIONS. 
PROM AX outsider’s STANDPOINT. 
til® following lines we give our readers, and especially 
Pharmaceutical examiners in these colonies, a chance of seeing 
themselves as others see them. The history of this paper is 
that we supplied a full series of examination papers, syllabuses, 
&c. of Australasian Pharmacy Boards to an accomplished j 
scientist connected with one of the colonial Universities. We 
gave him simply the documents with no comments except 
those necessary to make their relations intelligible, and as a 
result we now present our readers with an absolutely impartial 
ind candid comparison of the standards of the different 
olonies among themselves and with Great Britain. 
The writer points to undoubted blots in the systems adopted 
and we may hope that his remarks will be taken to heart and 
hell) ^1^® gradual improvement of the whole system of 
pharmaceutical education and examination. 
Australian Pharmaceutical Examiuations- 
A COMPARISON AND CRITICISM. 
Readers of The Chemist and Druggist of Australasia who 
followed the discussions, as reported in its columns, of the 
j first Intercolonial Pharmaceutical Conference held in Mel- 
bourne, last October, will have acquired a fairly definite notion 
of the one uniform standard of pharmaceutical education and 
examination, which was the unanimous ideal of the delegates 
to the Conference, but they may not have as clear a knowledge 
of the differences amongst the standards at present in existence 
in the several colonies. The object of the present article is to 
furnish a comparison, first of all the nominal standards with 
that of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and 
second of the actual standards as measureable by the examin- 
ation paper, set in the different colonies 
It goes without saying that the scheme of the subjects for 
minor examination and of their details, issued by the British 
Society, is adhered to pretty closely in all the examinations 
for registration held in the Australian colonies, the departures 
being chiefly due to the fact that the British distinction of 
“chemist and Druggist” from “pharmaceutical chemist ” is 
not upheld in most of the colonies, and accordingly the cor- 
resiionding minor and major examinations are rolled into one. 
But it may be worth while, before passing on to the compari- 
son of the principal examinations, to glance briefly at the 
requirements of the British Society and of the colonial Phar- 
macy Boards in the matter of apprenticeship and preliminary 
examinations. 
In Great Britain there is no compulsory apprenticeship ; all 
that is required for admission to the minor examination is 
that the candidate should be at least 21 years of age, and 
should have passed the preliminary examinations, and that 
he must have been for three years practically engaged in the 
translation and dispensing of prescriptions, either as an ap- 
prentice or a student, or in any other capacity. In Victoria 
an apprenticeship of 4 years after the passing of a prelimin- 
ary examination is compulsory ; in the other colonies where 
apprenticeship is compulsory, namely in New South Wales, 
Queensland, and New Zealand, the period extends to only 3 
years. In South Australia at present there is no Pharmacy 
Act so that there is no compulsory apxirenticeship, the passing 
of the preliminary examination merely qualifies a candidate 
for registration as a student of the Pharmaceutical Society of 
South Australia, but is no step towards a legal advantage over 
an unqualified man. In New Zealand there is at present no 
preliminary examination. 
In Great Britain the preliminary examination is a written 
one on the following subjects: — Latin: Grammar, translation 
of simple sentences from English into Latin; translation into 
English of a paragraph from Ctesar’s De Bello Gallico book I., 
or Virgil’s ^neid book I. (In each examination paper a pas- 
sage from both authors is given and the candidate is allowed 
his own option as to which he will translate.) 
Arith)ietic. — The first four rules, simple and compound, 
vulgar and decimal fractions, simple and compound pro 2 )ortion 
and the British and Metrical systems of weights and measures. 
Engi.' ;h. — Grammar and comjDosition. (Spelling and hand- 
writing leing taken into account.) 
At the beginning of this year the Pharmaceutical Society of 
New South Wales (which seems to find it hard to fix the limits 
of its own identity or to sejiarate its duties from those of the 
Board of Pharmacy) adopted the above scheme as it stands, 
for the preliminary examination in New South Wales ; as yet 
no iiapers have been set, but it is pretty certain that they will 
be made of the same difficulty as the British ones. The 
Queensland Pharmacy Board and the South Australian Phar- 
maceutical Society have done likewise with the omission of 
Virgil. In Victoria the British scheme without Virgil was 
adopted by the Pharmacy Board until last year, when, in order 
to jput the Victorian examinations exactly on the level of the 
British, an order from the Governor-in-Council was ob- 
tained legalizing the introduction of the first book of the 
.Eneid into the Victorian scheme. With reference to this 
alteration, Mr. C. R. Blackett, speaking at the Pharmaceutical 
Conference, said that “they (the Pharmacy Board of Victoria) 
expected the pharmacists of Australia to be men of culture 
