EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
719 
Absolute purity in most cases was unattainable or attained 
only at a cost which rendered it undesirable. For all pur- 
poses for which they were required he considered that drugs 
might be obtained sufficiently pure, and he thought it 
undesirable that any regulation should be enforced prohibit- 
ing the manufacture of cheaper drugs or chemicals. If a 
pure article were required, it could be procured. He illus- 
trated this by referring to the cyanide of potassium, so 
largely used in electro-plating, and where absolute purity 
is not necessary : it was manufactured for this purpose at 
6d. per pound, whereas the pure article would be 1$. 6d • 
per ounce. The same remark applied to carbonate of soda, 
which was made in large quantities in this country for the 
production of soap ; for which purpose it was not required 
to be pure ; and it would be a public injury to raise the price 
by compelling the manufacturer to make it so. 
He had no doubt that in many of the low districts espe- 
cially there was considerable adulteration of medicines, but 
the best remedy would be a better knowledge on the part of 
both buyer and seller. He did not wish to deny the fact of 
adulteration, or to justify it, but many of high standing in the 
commercial world were looking with great anxiety at the pro- 
ceedings of the Committee, as much that had gone forth to 
the public had a great tendency to deceive them. 
As Mr. Redwood has been for so many years connected 
with the Pharmaceutical Society, and his evidence is of a 
practical nature, we are disposed to insert the greater part of 
it, bearing as it does on the object we have in view. He now 
wished — 
“ To refer to other substances which had been described by previous wit- 
nesses as subject to great adulterations, but which according to his experience 
were in a state of irreproachable purity ; exceptions were exceedingly rare. 
Carbonate of soda, for example, as it was commonly called, or bi-carbonate of 
soda as it was in reality, was not subject to adulteration. Of forty samples 
which he had obtained, in only one was there any appreciable amount of 
impurity. Since the last meeting of the Committee, Dr. Normandy had 
brought to him a sample of soda for analysis, which contained twelve per 
cent, of sulphate of soda. This was not an adulteration, but an impurity, 
which rendered it unfit for medicine; but the forty specimens, some of 
which were obtained from the same neighbourhood, he (Mr. Redwood) had 
found pure, except that some were slightly deficient in carbonic acid, owing 
to exposure to the air. The substance calomel was said to be adulterated 
