PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING PHARMACY. 
575 
Liquor Chlori. The details of the process for making chlorine water are those 
of the Dublin Pharmacopoeia. The London College did not direct that the chlo¬ 
rine should be washed. The Edinburgh formula was quite inadmissible. 
Liquor Ferri Perchloridi. Many methods (Pharm. Journ. vol. iv. p. 24), 
or rather many modifications of one method, have been proposed for making the 
solution or tincture of sesquichloride—or perchloride, as we are now directed to 
call it—of iron. They were all bad, but the Pharmacopoeia method I regard 
as the worst of them all; for previous processes at least gave us solutions of the 
chloride only, however acid or basic they might be. The Pharmacopoeia process 
gives us a mixture of perchloride and pernitrate, for the whole of the nitric 
acid is not got rid of by ebullition. Now, of all the solid metallic chlorides, 
I know of none more easy to prepare in a perfectly pure, definite, dry, crystal¬ 
line condition than perchloride of iron. Pass dry chlorine, at any rate you 
please, into a quantity of warm iron nails contained in any kind of vessel, and 
the immediate result is a pulverulent mass of beautiful greenish-brown, iridescent, 
micaceous crystals of sesquichloride of iron. In any manipulations with the 
perchloride so obtained, the only point to be remembered is, that they are in¬ 
tensely greedy of moisture, highly deliquescent, so that they must be weighed 
indirectly rather than directly. In making this salt, I have generally directed 
students to place the nails in a Florence flask, heated by a spirit-lamp or other 
small flame, the chlorine delivery-tube passing to the bottom of the flask, and 
at the close of the operation to somewhat increase the heat so as to sublime 
the chloride into the upper part of the flask. The flask has then generally 
been cracked open, and the crystals quickly placed in well-stoppered bottles. 
In using the salt for making solution or tincture, it is desirable to weigh it 
and the bottle together without removing the stopper, to then quickly take out 
at a guess about as much as may be wanted, and, replacing the stopper, to 
ascertain exactly how much has been abstracted by again weighing the bottle 
and contents. By a little ingenuity, the salt might obviously be at once sub¬ 
limed into bottles in definite quantities. The proposal to use sublimed per¬ 
chloride of iron in making the tincture is not new ; Mowbray (Pharm. Journ. 
vol. iii. p. 389) strongly recommended this proceeding, yet, curiously enough, at 
the same time suggested a most complicated method of his own devising. If 
there is any practical objection to the process, or rather product of the process, 
such an objection has never been satisfactorily and publicly proved to exist. 
PEOPOSED LEGISLATION AEEECTING PHAEMACY. 
4 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—The Council appear to me to have produced a Bill which will com¬ 
mend itself to the judgment of the great majority of the trade, and which 
will be the more approved as the difficulties which beset the question are fairly 
weighed. It may be reduced to four principles:— 
1st. The preservation of the existing privileges in full of all who are now in 
business. 
2nd. The examination of all who shall hereafter profess to make up pre¬ 
scriptions. 
3rd. The provision that a simple and practical examination (the Minor one) 
shall be all that is necessary to set up in business, and that the title “ Associ¬ 
ate of the Pharmaceutical Society,” as a mark of distinction from the un¬ 
educated man, shall be secured to all who are so examined, with a full share 
in the government of the Society. 
4th. The retention of the title “Pharmaceutical Chemist,” with its privileges, 
to those who have passed the Major examination. 
2 Q 2 
