503 
BOTTLES FOR POISONS. 
DUTIES OF MASTERS AND APPRENTICES. 
TO THE EDITOE OE THE PHAEMACEUTICAL JOFENAL. 
Sir,—On reading the recent correspondence in the pages of the Journal on the 
duties of masters and apprentices, I feel considerable astonishmeut at the sublime 
ideas that are entertained by some respecting business and its requirements, and 
I feel at a loss to conjecture to what state of blissful perfection the trade is des¬ 
tined. Is it desired that we shall all become encyclopaedists, and discard the sober 
realities of business for the ethereal pleasures of science? 
Some of your correspondents appear to follow business as a recreation, and to 
entertain the notion that those who have apprentices ought to spend their time 
during the day, or evening, in lecturing them on chemistry and botany, etc., the 
more substantial part of practical business being neglected, or made of minor 
importance. What is the practice in the other professions? Does the medical 
man teach his pupil anatomy and physiology; or the lawyer the abstract princi¬ 
ples of jurisprudence? I trow not. All that is undertaken, and all that can be 
properly done, is to teach the business as it is practically conducted in the esta¬ 
blishment, accompanied, as time and circumstances permit, with such observa¬ 
tions as suggest themselves. 
In establishments where business worthy of the name is conducted, there is, 
or ought to be, little time for abstract pursuits. All the faculties most of us 
possess are required to conduct our very complicated and onerous duties. Of 
what value would the highest attainments in science avail, if the youthful 
possessor were unable to dispense a prescription, or make up a receipt for a horse- 
ball secundum artem? Ilis only resource would be a lectureship. If his ambition 
centred in this, it was his duty to have entered a school of science, not the shop 
of a pharmaceutist. My object is not to discourage the pursuit of science, but 
to correct the morbid sympathy which is frequently finding expression in the 
letters of your correspondents.—I am, Sir, yours most obediently, 
Common Sense. 
Bradford, February 16, 1864. 
BOTTLES FOR POISONS OR DANGEROUS MEDICINES. 
TO THE EDITOE OF THE PHAEMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—I have read with some interest occasional discussions of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society relative to a preventive bottle for poisonous preparations, and 
have felt some surprise at the variety of opinion and unsatisfactory conclu¬ 
sions, when the question might have been so easily set at rest by adopting a 
shape never used in dispensing. The bottle best suited for this purpose ap¬ 
pears to be the one selected many years ago by the old firm of Allen, Han- 
bury, and Barry, viz. the old conical octagon. It is a shape never used for 
dispensing medicines, and therefore most likely to attract attention, which is 
the great point to be secured. Some years ago the York Glass Company in¬ 
troduced this bottle in blue flint, and it is now extensively used for poisonous 
preparations. About the same time the Company also introduced the same¬ 
shaped bottle with a patented grooved stopper, admirably adapted for admi¬ 
nistering strong and dangerous medicines in drops ;• but either from inatten¬ 
tion or an objection to spare time to explain the manner of using it, it has not 
secured that attention which, as a really ingenious invention, it is entitled to. 
Now, however, that dispensing chemists are again agitating this question, its 
adaptation may be carefully examined and appreciated; at any rate, a pecu¬ 
liar and unusual shape should be selected, because of the security it would 
