368 
DUNDEE CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
advantage of a finished pharmaceutical education, such as can now be obtained at that 
excellent institution in Bloomsbury Square, which is under the management of the 
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. It was quite refreshing to witness the ease 
and freedom with which the various subjects were brought forward and discussed by 
those who took part in the proceedings on that occasion, the majority of whom, I believe, 
had been students in that valuable institution ; no wonder that it called forth the com¬ 
mendations of some of our best medical practitioners, of whom a goodly number was 
present. 
The Pharmaceutical Society may be looked upon in Scotland as being yet in its 
infancy, but when the aim and object of it is more fully matured and developed, there 
cannot be a doubt that, in the course of years, its influence and benefit will be experi¬ 
enced and appreciated over the length and breadth of the land. In the meantime let 
us avail ourselves of the instruction that is within our reach ; by these means, and these 
only, shall we accomplish the object for which this society has been established. 
The Second Monthly Meeting was held January 8th, 1868, Mr. A. M. Levie in the 
chair. The minutes of the last meeting being read and approved of, the chairman 
called on Mr. Laird to read his paper on “ Sweet Spirit of Nitre.” Mr. Laird com¬ 
menced :— 
In years past, I have been in the habit, now and then, of testing the various articles 
obtained from the wholesale drug houses, with the nearly uniform result of finding them 
so nearly correct that I could not very well find fault. At times, indeed, I had found it 
necessary to return some articles as being not the thing. 
After the late meetings of the British Pharmaceutical Conference here, I was more 
than ever anxious to carry out the testing process, and set about trying articles that I 
had formerly overlooked as being almost unnecessary to deal with, with the result of 
finding that if the Dundee sample of white precipitate noticed in the paper read on that 
article was quite pure, others were not equally so. While so engaged, I had a parcel 
of goods in from one of the most respectable London houses, containing a supply of 
spirit of nitre. I at once weighed it, and found that instead of being 0‘845, as required 
by the Pharmacopoeia, it was 0’855,—not a very great difference certainly, but still a 
difference sufficient to be recorded in my note-book; it also gave rise to the wish to 
know how my brethren elsewhere wqre served with the same article. I then set about 
collecting samples, and amused myself putting them all to the same test as my own; 
and while doing so, resolved that if ever our then proposed Association should have a 
being, to take the first opportunity of bringing the result before you. 
Mr. Laird then went on to describe the samples; he first noticed their external appear¬ 
ance, remarking that with three exceptions all of them were prepossessing, being tidily 
done up and wrapped in white paper, many of them being nicely sealed. Three of the 
samples were unlabelled, while one bottle was wrapped in a piece of dirty newspaper, 
uulabelled, and had a dirty cork, but the stuff itself was good, being 0'850, and only 
charged 3 d. an ounce. Of all the twenty-nine samples obtained, only one was close on 
the specific gravity, being -848 ; one sample only weighed *837, and contained only half 
the required proportion of nitrous ether, having evidently been prepared by the process 
of the old London Pharmacopoeia. Of the rest, six weighed -850, five *855, two *857, 
one ’872, one *875, two ‘877, one -890, one *893, two ’900, one ‘905, one -920, one ’937, 
one *952, and two - 956. Of all these I w^ould say the first fifteen were sold in the same 
state as they came from the maker; the next nine were either diluted with water, after 
being taken into stock, or else bought at a reduced price; the remaining five, I feel con¬ 
strained to say, have been freely diluted by the retailers, for I am not aware of any 
wholesale house offering it at a greater specific gravity than -900. With one exception 
they were all more or less acid, some of them particularly so, and effervescing very 
freely with the addition of a solution of the bicarbonate of soda ; the one exception above 
stated was so slightly acid that the litmus paper used as a test was inserted in the 
sample for a considerable time ere it gave the slightest sign of changing; its sp. gr. 
was -855. 
Mr. Laird concluded a most able paper by the following remarks:—I would now 
desire to notice first, gentlemen, the want of uniformity in the price of this article; 
twenty-one of the samples were sold at 4 d. an ounce, eight at 3d., and one so low as 2 \d .; 
