REVIEW — MANUAL OF PHARMACY. 
153 
what the pupils wanted. It initiates them, first, into the proper- 
ties of matter ; secondly, it instructs them in the art and mystery 
of pharmaceutical operations; thirdly, it teaches them the nature 
and origin and use of the various substances, natural and artificial, 
made use of in the practice of veterinary medicine. We can re- 
member the day when “ old” Wilkinson was pharmacien at the 
St. Pancras College. We have in our time received some lessons 
from him in the compounding of purging mass and diuretic mass, 
and mange ointment and canker ointment; and we have now 
lying before us a copy — a faithful one, we believe — of that 
esteemed, well-thumbed, age-honoured collection of “recipes” 
then in use at the College, which without a quid pro quo never 
passed from the sanctuary of the careful old man into the unhal- 
lowed hands of vulgar students. Herein we still find “ Eye 
Powders,” composed of five grains of muriate of soda and one 
ditto of bole armenian ; “Cordial Balls” composed of powdered 
ginger and linseed meal , with “ iheriac ” sufficient to form a bolus; 
and “ Pectoral Balls,” and “ Strong Tonic” and “ Mild Tonic Balls,” 
all equally choice and rare in their composition, and “ infallible” 
in their efficacy. Induction into these mysteries may be said to 
have comprised the whole of the veterinary pharmacy of those 
days. Times, however, are strangely altered now : the veterinary 
student is required to know that aloes are the inspissated iuice 
of the aloe spicata ; that hog’s lard is a composition of carbon , 
hydrogen , and oxygen ; and that the verdigris used in making 
canker ointment becomes decomposed by the addition of sulphuric 
or nitric acid. And herein it is that Mr. Morton’s scientific 
work differs from its empirical predecessors. 
So far concerning the veterinary student. As regards the 
practitioner of veterinary medicine and surgery, the work would 
be more valuable to him did it extend its reports of the operation 
and effects and doses of the various medicines in use amongst us, 
much more than it has, beyond the walls of the College. Insu- 
lated as that institution stands, and distant from the metropolis, it 
never has had, nor can it one while, if ever, enjoy that variety 
and extent of practice which alone can lead to the testing and esti- 
mation of medicines ; and therefore Mr. Morton, would he in the 
practitioners’ eyes enhance the value of his “ Manual,” should as 
much as possible enlarge his sphere of therapeutic inquiry. Nor 
need he be content with domestic sources of information ; but ex- 
tend, if he deem it worth his while, his researches into the conti- 
nental systems of veterinary pharmacy. 
Running on in this manner, however, we are forgetting that the 
“ Manual” came under our review some years ago {Vet., vol. x, 
p. 506, et sequent). We must, in huntsman’s phrase, “ hark back,” 
