RELATION OF THE BRITISH PHARMACOPCEIA TO PHARMACOLOGY. G29 
the advancement which has been made in Pharmacy since the last English, 
Scotch, and Irish Pharmacopoeias were published, I had, in my last lecture, 
arrived in due alphabetical order at the Liquors. I have only two other liquors 
to notice. 
Liquor Morphia Acetatis of the London and Dublin Colleges is omitted from the 
preparations of the British Pharmacopoeia. This is well, for E. Wood showed 
(Pharm. Journ. vol. xvi. p. 531) that it became brown and ineffective on standing. 
Its place is supplied by the Liquor Morphia Hydrochloratis of the three old Phar¬ 
macopoeias, the strength of which will now be equal, instead of as strong again 
in Scotland as in Ireland or England,—another illustration of the many ad¬ 
vantages secured by the publication of a national Pharmacopoeia. The formula 
includes a small quantity of hydrochloric acid, which will be found to probably 
assist in dissolving and preserving the hydrochlorate of morphia. 
Liquor Potassx. I have nothing to say concerning the process for the pre¬ 
paration of solution of potash; it is a very good one, and is perhaps the only 
one that can be used with advantage on a large scale. It also gives a liquor 
sufficiently pure as a medicinal remedy. Indeed, it is an improvement on the 
old process, inasmuch as slaked lime is now ordered in place of quick lime. But, 
seeing that the authors of the Pharmacopoeia have obviously been desirous to 
instruct the apothecary, pharmaceutic chemist, and student, rather than the 
manufacturer, and have ordered quantities and processes to suit them and not 
him, it would have been more consistent had they included for the preparation 
of Liquor Potassse a well-known process, which, in place of iron vessels, 
stirrers, a source of heat and the employment of much time, requires only the aid 
of a common bottle. 
Redwood has shown (Pharm. Journ. 2nd ser., vol. ii. p. 455) that if the carbo¬ 
nate of potash and excess of hydrate of lime be simply well shaken with water in a 
bottle, until a little of the solution does not effervesce on the addition of an acid, 
a liquor potassse is produced, which is even purer than the officinal article. The 
students in the pharmaceutical laboratories, and I myself, always employ 
this process in preparing our test solution; and if we may act on Garrod’s state¬ 
ment (Med. Times and Gaz., 1864, vol. i. p. 359), that the object of the Pharma¬ 
copoeia Committee has been to give processes by which each chemical drug 
can be made, not the one to be necessarily adopted in its manufacture, then 
I do not see why apothecaries and pharmaceutic chemists should not adopt the 
process too. The authors of the British Pharmacopoeia, in not introducing it 
into their work, missed a good opportunity of gracefully showing their appre¬ 
ciation of the labours of Pharmacologists. 
Lithue Carbonas. —The Pharmacopoeia does not contain a process for the 
preparation of this rare chemical. The student will find one in the ‘ Pharma¬ 
ceutical Journal ’ (vol. iv. p. 132), or in any of the modern books of chemistry. 
Mel.— The only test given for the detection of adulteration in honey is that 
of iodine for starch. No means is indicated whereby the presence of water, glue, 
mucilage, and albumen, as found in the Rhone honeys by Frickhinger (Pharm. 
Journ., vol. xvii. p. 32), can be determined. 
Misturje. —Mistura Creasoti. This preparation is from the Edinburgh 
Pharmacopoeia. It is the only preparation in which glacial acetic acid is used, 
and even here the employment of the acid would seem to be unnecessary, for 
Pereira states (Mat. Med., 3rd edit., vol. ii.p. 2012) that one part of creasote dis¬ 
solves in eighty of water. In the mixture now ordered, one part of creasote is 
present in four hundred and forty of water, so that the acetic acid must be un¬ 
necessary as an aid to solution of the creasote, and this is apparently its only use. 
The spirit of juniper in the formula is stated (Lancet, 1864, vol. i. p. 195) to 
make the mixture milky, so that altogether the preparation needs investigation 
by Pharmaceutists. 
